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GLADSTONE-PARN 

AND 

THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 

A GRAPHIC STORY OF THE INJUSTICE AND OPPRESSION INFLN TED 
UPON THE IRISH TENANTRY, AND A HISTORY OF THE GI- 
GANTIC MOVEMENT THROUGHOUT IRELAND, AMERICA 
AND GREAT BRITAIN FOR "HOME RULE," WITH 
BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT LEADERS, 
GLADSTONE, PARNELL, DAVITT, EGAN, 
AND VERY MANY OTHERS. 

BY THE DISTINGUISHED AUTHORS, JOURNALISTS AND 
FRIENDS OF IRELAND, 

Hon. THOMAS POWER (f CONNOR, M. P., 

•v AND 

ROBERT McWADE, Esq., - 

Ex-President Municipal Council of Philadelphia, etc., etc. 



i 



GENERAL INTRODUCTION 

BY 



HON. CHARLES STEWART PARNELL M.P. 

Canadian Introduction by A. Burns, D. D.. LL.D. 
American Introduction by Prof. R. E. Thompson, D. D.. LI. I). 



PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED 



HUBBARD BROS., Publishers: 

PHILADELPHIA, BOSTON, CINCINNATI, KANSAS CITY AND ATLANTA 

G. L. HOWE, Chicago ; W. A. HOUGHTON, New York ; 
A. L. BANCROFT & CO., San Francisco. 




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ft" 1 ««Ullv" 

!SSS«OTOjf/- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1886, by 

HUBBARD BROTHERS, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. 0. 






f 




HON. T. (' O'CONNOR. MP 



INTRODUCTION. 



1HAVE pleasure in writing- a few lines of 
preface to Mr. T. P. O'Connor's volume. I 
know no one who is better fitted to present the 
case of Ireland, and especially the history of our 
movement, before the public of America. His 
vigorous and picturesque pen makes everything 
he writes lucid, interesting, and effective ; and he 
has had the advantage of himself taking a promi- 
nent and honorable part in many of the scenes 
he so graphically describes. I believe it espe- 
cially desirable to have our case properly stated 
to the American public at the present moment. 
No Irishman can speak too warmly of the ex- 
traordinary assistance that America has rendered 
to the cause of Ireland. The financial and moral 
support which our movement has received from 
the Great Republic has been recognized by 
eminent English Statesmen as an entirely new 
factor in the present movement, and as giving it 



g INTRODUCTION. 

a strength and a power of endurance absent 
from many previous Irish efforts. It is at mo- 
ments of crisis like the present, when other po- 
litical parties face the expense and difficulties of 
a political campaign with hesitation and appre- 
hension, that one really appreciates the enormous 
position of vantage in which American generosity 
has placed the Irish party. Then the unanimity 
of opinion both among the statesmen and the 
journalists of America has done much to en- 
courage men like Mr. Gladstone, who are fight- 
ing for the Irish cause, and to fill Ireland's enemies 
with the grave misgiving that the policy con- 
demned by another great and free nation may not 
be sound or just. For these reasons we are all 
especially desirous that American opinion should 
be made acquainted with the merits and facts of 
this great controversy, and the following pages 
are eminently calculated to perform that good 
work. 

Charles Stewart Parnell. 

London, August, 1886. 




A. BURNS, D. U., LL. D. 



CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. 

BY A. BURNS, D. D., LL. D., 

President Wesleyan Female College, Hamilton, Ont. 
Canada. 



THE following pages cover one of the most 
interesting periods in Irish history. The 
story related falls mainly within the memory of 
most of its readers, embracing scarce the last 
two decades. 

It is written by a university man of scholarly 
attainments, a brilliant journalist and author, one 
who, although comparatively a young man yet, 
is fairly entitled to say of most of the strug- 
gles and scenes he describes, quorum pars magna 
Jul 

The book may be taken as a representative 
putting of the great struggle now going on, and 
as such it may fairly claim the attention of all in- 
terested in the peace and prosperity of Ireland. 
None need be told that that land is now unhappy 
and somewhat disaffected. Her harp is on the 
willows, her songs are threnodies. Yet no one 
can become acquainted with her children without 



10 CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. 

discovering that naturally they are cheerful, light- 
hearted and hopeful. Nor can you give to one 
of them a cup of cold water without waking a 
genuine inborn gratitude. Whether at home or 
abroad, the race is hopeful, grateful, and essen- 
tially patriotic. A kind word jr deed for Ireland 
will brighten the eye, quicken the pulse, arouse 
the enthusiasm, and win the affection of her chil- 
dren the world over. 

Have her critics furnished an adequate expla- 
nation of the present unhappy condition of such a 
people ? The passionate outbursts of her out- 
raged sons receive due prominence. Her agra- 
rian crimes are published far and wide. Bid: few 
pre candid enough to admit that the crimes of Ire- 
land are chiefly agrarian, and caused by the 
wholesale confiscation of her soil, and the strug- 
gles of the descendants of the real owners to re- 
gain the lands of their fathers. Goldwin Smith 
tells us "an alien and absentee proprietary is the 
immediate source of her troubles." " The owner- 
ship of land in that country is itself the heritage 
of confiscation, and of confiscation which has 
never been forgotten. The struggle is in fact the 
last stage of a long civil war between the con- 
quered race and an intrusive proprietary, which 
was closely identified with the political ascendency 
of the foreigner, and the religious ascendency of 
an alien creed." " The districts where agrarian 
violence has most prevailed have been singularly 



CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. ]\ 

free from ordinary crime. The Irish farmer has 
clung desperately to his homestead, eviction is to 
him destitution." "The crime (of the Irish) is 
solely agrarian. In the districts where it has 
been most rife, even in Tipperary itself, ordinary 
offences have been very rare," and he continues, 
"justice requires that we remember the training 
which the Irish as a nation have had, and of which 
the traces are still left upon their character. In 
1 798 they were goaded into open rebellion by the 
wholesale flogging, half-hanging, pitch-capping 
and picketing which were carried on over a large 
district by the yeomanry and militiamen, who, as 
soon as the suffering masses began to heave with 
disaffection, were launched upon the homes of the 
peasantry." 

Irish history is little studied. Few even of my 
countrymen know anything of the history of our 
country. A partial excuse may be found in the 
fact that even in the schools of Ireland the history 
of the country is not found. Only as it may be 
considered necessary to explain English history is 
Ireland ever mentioned, and neither in common 
school -nor in university have the children of Ire- 
land the faintest opportunity to learn anything of 
their people, or the causes of the disaffection so 
generally prevalent. Traditions abound, but they 
are generally on sectarian lines, and theological 
bitterness, the worst of all, is usually added to 
political. 



12 CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. 

The story that follows will be found real his- 
tory, the history of our own times. Every page 
will revive the memory of the stirring scenes of 
the last decade or two, and as a panoramic vision 
will fix in the mind the cause of events that had 
well-nigh passed from us forever. 

This work will be found exceedingly oppor- 
tune. Mr. Gladstone's bill for Home Rule in 
Ireland has been defeated at Westminster, and 
again by the people of England, because, as we 
verily believe, it was not understood by the Brit- 
ish people, while it was grossly misrepresented 
by those whose interests are at war with the 
enlargement of popular rights. 

The following pages will show the emptiness 
and absurdity of the war cries of the late conflict 
— " The Empire in Danger," " The Union in Dan- 
ger," "Protestantism in Danger" — all echoes of 
the Disestablishment Conflict of 1868, the recol- 
lections of which ought to have taught the pseudo- 
prophets wisdom and moderation. There never 
was a measure more grossly caricatured than the 
late bill for the relief of Ireland. It was all in 
vain that the leaders of Irish thought had declared 
both with pen and voice that " the proposed Irish 
Parliament would bear the same relation to the 
Parliament at Westminster that the Legislature 
and Senate of every American State bear to the 
head authority of the Congress in the capitol at 
Washington." All that relates to local business it 



CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. J 3 

was proposed to delegate to the Irish Assembly; 
all questions of imperial policy were still to be 
left to the imperial government. It was all in 
vain that the acknowledged Irish leader, Mr. Par- 
nell, declared in the closing debate that the Irish 
people were content to have a Parliament wholly 
subordinate to the imperial Parliament ; that they 
did not expect a Parliament like Grattan's, which 
possessed co-ordinate powers. The words of 
some outraged exile in America or Australia fur- 
nished a sufficient pretext for the ungenerous but 
characteristic vote that followed. 

In this great struggle I am thoroughly in sym- 
pathy with my country. With the historian Lecky 
I believe that " the Home Rule theory is within the 
limits of the Constitution and supported by 
means that are perfectly loyal and legitimate." 
The British Colonies have secured it, and it is 
not too much to say that the bond of union be- 
tween the Colonies and the Empire depends on 
its existence. Canadian opposition to Home 
Rule would seem to show that the denial of the 
boon implies also the rejection of the Golden 
Rule. 

That permanent peace will ever come to Ire- 
land without it no sane man expects. No foreign 
power can govern Ireland. The experiment has 
surely been tried long enough. The unconquer- 
able spirit possessed so fully by the larger island 
is no less developed in Ireland. The spirit of 



|4 CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. 

the age only strengthens the spirit of indepen- 
dence, while the millions of her children on this side 
the Atlantic tell her that Home Rule is the only 
reasonable rule for freemen. 

Ireland needs rest. For a long time she has 
been under terrible provocation, and has suffered 
as no other country in Europe. She looks 
around for sympathy, and L is not wanting. But 
what she needs most is equitably yea, generous 
treatment at the hands of England. These 
pages will show that her poverty is largely the 
result of misgovernment. England needs the 
tranquillity of Ireland as much as Ireland herself 
does. Let Ireland be assured that her rights 
are to be sacredly respected ; that her wrongs are 
to be redressed by England, not grudgingly nor 
of necessity; that the elevation and comfort of 
her down-trodden children is to be considered 
a more pressing subject of legislation than the 
claims of an independent and irresponsible no- 
bility. She has given her Burkes, her Welling- 
tons, her Dufferins and her Tyndalls to enrich the 
Empire. Let her be told to call her children to 
the development of her own resources and the 
improvement of her own polity. Order will 
then soon come from chaos, and light from her 
sadly prolonged darkness, and the days of her 
mourning- will soon be ended. 

Thoroughly satisfied that a generous policy on 
the part of England, not merely permitting, but 



CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. jg 

encouraging Home Rule, would give to my 
country peace, prosperity, and enthusiastic loyalty, 
I take my place with those who plead for a sep- 
arate Parliament for Ireland, as Illinois, Ohio, and 
California have separate Parliaments, but still 
allied to the Imperial Parliament on the principle 
that binds Illinois, Ohio, and California to the 
United States of America. Less than that should 
not be accepted. More has not been asked by 
any of the leaders sketched in this work. 

I commend the work to the reader not because 
I can endorse every sentence that it contains, or 
approve of all the details of operation therein, for 
I have not studied carefully every page. But I 
heartily approve of the object aimed at, and 
believing that the present struggle is the old con- 
test of monopoly against the common weal, or, as 
it has been aptly put recently, of " the classes 
against the masses," I promptly take my place 
with the latter, and claim for my countrymen a 
respectful hearing. 

As in all past struggles for the enlargement of 
British liberties the terms "loyal" and "disloyal" 
have been called into active service, so it is to-day, 
and " Unionists " and " Loyalists " are posing as 
the legitimate opponents of Home Rule. These 
pretensions and assumptions have been torn into 
tatters a thousand times, and are as meaningless 
when so used as the terms "orthodox" and 
"heterodox" among speculative theologians. 



16 CANADIAN INTRODUCTION. 

And as we scan the ranks of the men who on 
either side of the Atlantic are the self-constituted 
representatives of loyalty, and monopolize the 
term, we instinctively ask Risum teneatis ? Some, 
I admit, may honestly see in Home Rule the dis- 
memberment of the Empire and innumerable 
other evils. But I am firmly convinced that there 
are a thousand thousand good hearts and true, 
who, like myself, see in Home Rule and its con- 
comitant legislation not merely harmony and 
prosperity to Ireland, but an immeasurably 
brighter future and a more permanent stability 
to the British Empire. 

A. Burns. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



Charles Stewart Pamell — His character for grip arid grit — His talents 
■ — His appearance — His early life and education — His ancestry — 
Admiral Charles Stewart — Parnell's first tour in America — The 
Manchester Martyrs — Parnell's entrance into political life — Isaac 
Butt and the earlier movements for Home Rule — Parnell and 
Butt — Joseph Gillis Biggar — Enormous salaries paid to officials 
in Ireland — The policy of obstruction — Parnell's first speech in 
the House of Commons 25 

CHAPTER II. 

The era of obstruction — The British House of Commons — Queen's 
speech — The vote on supplies — How obstruction helped Ire- 
land's cause — A happy hunting-ground — Flogging in the army — 
England's treatment of prisoners—The Mutiny Act — Making 
John Bull listen — The Transvaal bill — The Irish in England and 
Scotland — The Famine of 1879 — A crisis in Ireland's history — 
Mr. Butt's defects as a leader — Michael Davitt — The story of his 
early years — A Fenian movement — Davitt in prison — A ticket- 
of-leave — Irish-American organizations — Land League — " The 
Three F's " 7 8 

CHAPTER III. 

The land war — The struggle of seven centuries — Illustrations from 
Irish history — Coin and livery — The wars under the Tudor dy- 
nasty — Feudal tenure — The Munster undertakers — The settle- 
ment of Ulster — The Commission of Inquiry — The perfidy of the 
Stuarts — Cromwell 111 Ireland — William III., Sarsfield, Limer- 
ick, and the Penal Code . . . . . . . .120 

17 



18 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IV. 

The destruction of Irish industries — An alien proprietary — English 
legislation for many years directed against Ireland's prosperity — 
Interference with Irish trade — The depopulation of the land — 
Woollen manufactures crushed out — Blow after blow dealt at 
nascent industries — Lord Dufferin on English jealousy of Ireland 
— Rack-renting, eviction and legalized robbery — Cruelties of the 
landlords — Dean Swift's pictures of Ireland in the eighteenth 
century — Beggary and starvation . . . . . -159 

CHAPTER V. 

The story of Irish Parliament — Poyning's law — Molyneux's " Case 
of Ireland Stated " — Wood's Half- Pence — The condition of 
Catholics — The corruptions of the Anglo-Irish Parliament — The 
Irish Volunteers — The convention at Dungarvan — Grattan's 
Declaration of Rights — An independent Irish Parliament — Its 
happy effect on Irish industries and on business in general — 
Lord Fitzwilliam recalled — The rebellion of 1798 — Castlereagh 
— How the Union was brought about . . . . 177 

CHAPTER VI. 

After the Union — Ireland heavily taxed for England's benefit — 
Shameful injustice — The degradation of the tenantry — Absentee- 
ism — Wholesale eviction — Coercion acts — Worse and worse — 
Wrong, poverty and hopeless misery — Catholic Emancipation — 
O'Connell the Liberator — The attitude of the Orange Tory party 
— O'Connell in Parliament ....... 226 

CHAPTER VII. 

The great famine of 1845 — Only the culmination of evils — The pota- 
to-rot — The great struggle in England regarding the Corn-Laws 
— Protection versus Free Trade — Peel and repeal — Lord John 
Russell — His criminally stupid Irish policy and its bitter conse- 
quences — Tenant right the only remedy for Ireland's woes — Co- 
ercion as a cure for famine — The awful disasters of 1845 an & 
1847 — Foolish doctrinaire policy of Russell — The Labor Rate 
act — The Fever — The Soup Kitchen act — Emigration — Death 
of O'Connell — Young Ireland — John Mitchel and Smith O'Brien 
— Great Britain the unchecked mistress of Ireland . . . 254 



CONTENTS. 19 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Resurrection — The Fenian movement — Gladstone's mental and moral 
characteristics — The disestablishment of the Irish Church — The 
Land Bill of 1870, and its fatal defects — The Home Rule 
movement originally started by Protestants — The Home Rule 
Association — A complete change of policy — No favors to be 
asked or accepted from either great English party . . . 289 

CHAPTER IX. 

The old fight again — The crisis of 1879 — The election of Mr. Par- 
nell as chairman of the Irish party — Defects of Mr. Shaw as a 
political leader — The leaders decide to remain in opposition to 
both English parties — Mr. Shaw's friends sell themselves for 
place and pay — The hopeless differences between the Irish party 
and the English Liberals — Parnell's platform for settling the 
Irish land problem — English incapacity to deal with Irish ques- 
tions — The Disturbance Bill — Forster — Irish outrages — Irish 
members suspended and ordered to leave the House — Land Bill 
of 1881— No-Rent cry 308 

CHAPTER X. 

In the depths — Merciless war between the Irish people and the au- 
thorities — Forster and Clifford Lloyd — " Harvey Duff" — Par- 
nell imprisoned — Parnell triumphant — The Phoenix Park mur- 
ders — Conservative rule and its benefits — Gladstone's new move- 
ment for conceding Home Rule — The situation in January, 
1886 345 

CHAPTER XI. 

The great Home Rule debate of 1886 — Gladstone, the Grand Old 
Man — His appearance — His qualities of mind and heart — John 
Morley — Joseph Chamberlain — Mr. Goschen — Hartington — Sal- 
isbury — Churchill — Justin McCarthy — Thomas Sexton — Arthur 
O'Connor — Timothy Daniel Sullivan — James O'Kelly — His sin- 
gular and checkered career as soldier, journalist, politician and 
parliamentarian — John Dillon — Edmund Leamy — E. D. Gray — 
T. M. Healy — William O'Brien — J. E. Redmond — T. Harring- 
ton — The Liberal Parliament of 1886 — Gladstone's grand speech 
— The debate — Hope again deferred 362 



20 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

The appeal to the country — Gladstone's popularity with the masses — 
His brilliant campaign in Scotland — Splendid receptions at Man- 
chester, Liverpool, and elsewhere — Anti-Gladstonian efforts of 
Hartington, Chamberlain, Goschen, Churchill, Trevelyan and 
Bright — The Primrose League — The attitude of the agricultural 
laborer and the farmer — The democracy almost unanimously 
friendly to Ireland— The result of the midsummer elections of 
1886 — Ireland not crushed — The revival of hope — Belfast riots 
— The outlook to-day 445 

CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 

American Introduction ......... 457 

Parnell's Appeal to America — Founding of the Irish National League 
of the United States — The Buffalo Convention — The " No-Rent 
Manifesto" — The Chicago Convention — The League's Second 
National Gathering — Gloomy days for the League — End of the 
Land League of America — Birth and growth of the Irish Na- 
tional League of America — Hon. Alexander Sullivan's admin- 
istration — The emigration question — Irish-American leaders — 
Patrick Egan takes the reins — Dark days again dawn for the 
League — Public utterances of eminent Americans — To strengthen 
Gladstone's hands — Third Annual Convention of the National 
League — The League under John Fitzgerald's administration . 471 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE {Steel) Frontispiece, 

THOMAS POWER O'CONNOR s 

A. BURNS, D. D., LL. D 8 

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL (Steel) 24 

ISAAC BUTT — J. G. BIGGAR 53 

JOHN DILLON — GEO. J. GOSCHEN 57 

J. WAITE 7I 

LORD R. CHURCHILL — LORD HUNTINGDON 75 

LORD SPENCER — MR. TREVELYAN 83 

MICHAEL DAVITT 97 

F. B. FREEHILL 

I0 3 

SCENE IN IRELAND — FARMER'S CABIN „, 

RT. HON. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN „ s 

EVICTED — DRIVEN FROM THE HOUSE WE BUILT 131 

W. REDMOND — J. E. REDMOND , 47 



155 

165 



CELEBRATING MASS IN A CABIN 

LIFE IN IRELAND 

DESTITUTE FISHERMEN ,„ 

EVICTED — HOMELESS j8 3 

HENRY GRATTAN l8g 

GRATTAN'S PARLIAMENT 2 oi 

DANIEL O'CONNELL 24g 

DRINKING HIS HONOR'S HEALTH 259 

THE OBNOXIOUS PROCESS-SERVER 2g3 



NO RENT. 



301 



T. M. HEALY — JOHN GEORGE McCARTHY 313 

MEETING OF LAND LEAGUE COMMITTEE .". 321 

SOLICITING AID 329 

LORD SALISBURY — Mr. FORSTER 333 

21 






22 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

JOHN MORLEY— SIR. W. V. HARCOURT 339 

THOMAS SEXTON — W. H. O'SULLIVAN 371 

A. M. SULLIVAN — T. D. SULLIVAN 403 

GLADSTONE'S SPEECH 437 

PARNELL'S NEW NATIONAL MAP 442 

ROBERT M. McWADE 469 

PATRICK A. COLLINS — THOMAS FLATLEY 47 o 

PATRICK EGAN — ALEXANDER SULLIVAN 475 

JAMES MOONEY — JOHN J. HYNES 476 

REV. PATRICK CRONIN — JOHN F. FINERTY 509 

REV. CHARLES O'REILLY, D. D. — REV. THOMAS J. CONATY 510 

WILLIAM J. GLEASON — HON. M. V. GANNON 545 

REV. DR. GEO. C. BETTS — REV. P. A. McKENNA 546 

COL. JOHN F. ARMSTRONG — PATRICK MARTIN 603 

MICHAEL J. REDDING — MILES M. O'BRIEN 604 

JAMES REYNOLDS — JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY 613 

COL. W. P. REND — JOHN GROVES 614 

ROGER WALSH — O'NEILL RYAN 651 

JOHN FITZGERALD — JOHN P.SUTTON 652 

REV. GEO. W. PEPPER — THOMAS H. WALSH 759 

M. J. RYAN — E. JOHNSON 7C0 








i/ " {J^^^4a 




CHAPTER I. 

CHARLES STEWART PARNELL. 

GRIP and grit : in these two words are told 
the secret of Mr. Parnell's marvellous 
success and marvellous hold over men. When 
once he has made up his mind to a thing - he is 
inflexible ; immovable by affection or fear or 
reasoning. He knows what he wants, and he is 
resolved to have it. Throughout his career he 
has often had to make bargains ; he has never yet 
been known to make one in which he gave up a 
single iota which he could hold. But it takes 
time before one discovers these qualities. In 
ordinary circumstances Mr. Parnell is apparently 
the most easy-going of men. Though he is not 
emotional or effusive, he is genial and unaffected 
to a degree ; listens to all comers with an air of 
real deference, especially if they be good talkers ; 
and apparently allows himself to follow implicitly 
the guidance of those who are speaking to him. 
He is for this reason one of the most agreeable 
of companions, never raising any difficulties about 
trifles, ready to subject his will and his conven- 
ience to that of others ; amiable, unpretending, a 

(25) 



26 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

splendid listener, a delightful host. But all the 
softness and the pliancy disappear when the 
moment comes for decisive action. After days 
of apparent wavering, he suddenly becomes 
granite. His decision is taken, and once taken 
is irrevocable. He goes right on to the end, 
whatever it may be. In some respects, indeed, 
he bears a singular resemblance to General 
Grant ; he has his council of war, and nobody 
could be a more patient or more respectful lis- 
tener, and, ordinarily, nobody more ready to have 
his thinking done for him by others. But when 
affairs reach a great climax, it is his own judg- 
ment upon which he acts, and upon that alone. 

Mr. Parnell has not a large gift of expression. 
He hates public speaking, and avoids a crowd 
with a nervousness that sometimes appears almost 
feminine. He likes to steal through crowded 
streets in a long, heavy Ulster and a small 
smoking-cap that effectually conceal his identity, 
and when he is in Ireland is only happy when the 
quietness of Avondale secludes him from all eyes 
but those of a few intimates. From his want of 
any love of expressing himself, it often happens 
that he leaves a poor impression on those who 
meet him casually. More than one man has 
thought that he was little better than a simpleton, 
and their mangled reputations strew the path over 
which the Juggernaut of Parnell's fortunes and 
genius has mercilessly passed. He is incapable 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 27 

of giving the secret of his power, or of explaining 
the reasons of his decisions. He judges wisely, 
with instinctive wisdom, just as Millais paints ; he 
is always politically right, because, so to speak, he 
cannot help it. This want of any great power 
and any great desire to expose the line of reason- 
ing by which he has reached his conclusions has 
often exposed Parnell to misunderstandings and 
strong differences of opinion even with those who 
respect and admire him. The invariable result is 
that, when time has passed, those who have dif- 
fered from him admit that they were wrong and 
he right, and once more have a fatalistic belief in 
his sagacity. Often he does not speak for days 
to any of his friends, and is seldom even seen by 
them. He knows the enormous advantage some- 
times of pulling wires from an invisible point. 
During this absence his friends occasionally fret 
and fume and wonder, whether he knows every- 
thing that is going on ; and, when their impatience 
has reached its climax, Parnell appears, and lo ! a 
great combination has been successfully laid, and 
the Irish are within the citadel of some time- 
honored and apparently immortal wrong. Simi- 
larly it is with Parnell's nerve. In ordinary times 
he occasionally appears nervous and fretful and 
pessimistic; in the hour of crisis he is calm, gay, 
certain of victory, with the fanaticism of a Mussul- 
man, unconscious of danger, with a blindness half 
boyish, half divine. 



28 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Mr. Parnell is not a man of large literary 
reading, but he is a severe and constant student 
of scientific subjects, and is especially devoted to 
mechanics. It is one of his amusements to isolate 
himself from the enthusiastic crowds that meet 
him everywhere in Ireland, and, in a room by 
himself, to find delight in mathematical books. 
He is a constant reader of enoineerincr and other 
mechanical papers, and he takes the keenest in- 
terest in machinery. It is characteristic of the 
modesty and, at the same time, scornfulness of his 
nature, that all through the many attacks made 
upon him by gentlemen who wear their hearts 
upon their sleeves, he has never once made allusion 
to his own strong love of animals ; but to his 
friends he often expressed his disgust for the 
outrages that, during a portion of the agitation in 
Ireland, were occasionally committed upon them. 
He did not express these sentiments in public, 
for the good reason that he regarded the outcry 
raised by some of the Radicals as part of the 
gospel of cant for which that section of the 
Liberal party is especially distinguished. To 
hear a man like Mr. Forster refusing a word of 
sympathy, in one breath, for whole housefuls of 
human beings turned out by a felonious landlord 
to die by the roadside, and, in the next, demanding 
the suppression of the liberties of a nation be- 
cause half-a-dozen of cattle had their tails cut off; 
to see the same men who howled in delight be- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 29 

cause the apostle of a great humane movement, 
like Mr. Davitt, had been sent to the horrors of 
penal servitude, shuddering over the ill-usage of 
a horse, was quite enough to make even the most 
humane man regard this professed love of an- 
imals as but another item in the grand total of 
their hypocrisy. Mr. Parnell regards the lives of 
human beings as more sacred than even those of 
animals, and he is consistent in his hatred of op- 
pression and cruelty wherever they may be found. 
His sympathies are with the fights of freedom 
everywhere, and he often spoke in the strongest 
terms of his disgust for the butcheries in the 
Soudan, which the Liberals, who wept over Irish 
horses, and Irish cows, received with such Olym- 
pian calm. In 1867 the ideas that had been sown 
in his mind in childhood first began to mature. 
His mother was then, as probably throughout her 
life, a strong Nationalist, and so was at least one 
of his sisters. Thus Mr. Parnell, in entering upon 
political life, was reaching the natural sequel of 
his own descent, of his early training, of the 
strongest tendencies of his own nature. It is 
not easy to describe the mental life of a man who 
is neither expansive nor introspective. It is one 
of the strongest and most curious peculiarities 
of Mr. Parnell, not merely that he rarely, if ever, 
speaks of himself, but that he rarely, if ever, 
gives any indication of having studied himself. 
His mind, if one may use the jargon of the 



30 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Germans, is purely objective. There are few 
men who, after a certain length of acquaintance, 
do not familiarize you with the state of their 
hearts or their stomachs or their finances ; with 
their fears, their hopes, their aims. But no' man 
has ever been a confidant of Mr. Parnell. Any 
allusion to himself by another, either in the exu- 
berance of friendship or the design of flattery, 
is passed by unheeded; and it is a joke among 
his intimates that to Mr. Parnell the being 
Parnell does not exist. 

It is plain from the facts we have narrated 
that Parnell's great strength is one which lies in 
his character rather than in his attainments. Yet 
his wonderful successes won in the face of nu- 
merous and most bitter opponents testify to 
mental abilities of a very high order. Mr. Glad- 
stone has said of him, " No man, as far as I can 
judge, is more successful than the hon. member 
in doing that which it is commonly supposed that 
all speakers do, but which in my opinion few 
really do — and I do not include myself among 
those few — namely, in saying what he means to 
say." Mr. Parnell is moreover very strong in 
not saying the thing which should not be said. 
Too many of his countrymen, it may be safely as- 
serted, are of that hasty and impulsive tem- 
perament which may betray, by a word prema- 
turely spoken, some point which should have been 
held from the enemy, and which might easily 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 31 

have been made, at some later time, a stronghold 
of defence in the parliamentary contest. Mr. 
Parnell has few qualities which have hitherto 
been associated with the idea of a successful Irish 
leader. He has now become one of the most 
potent of parliamentary debaters in the House of 
Commons, through his thorough grasp of his 
own ideas and through his exact knowledge of 
the needs of his country. But Mr. Parnell has be- 
come this in spite of himself. He retains to this 
day, as we have before stated, an almost invin- 
cible repugnance to public speaking ; if he can, 
through any excuse, be silent, he remains silent, 
and the want of all training before his entrance 
into political life made him, at first, a speaker 
more than usually stumbling. His complete suc- 
cess in overcoming, not indeed his natural ob- 
jection to public speaking, but the difficulty with 
which his first speeches were marked, affords one 
of the many proofs of his wonderful strength and 
singleness of purpose.' It is not a little re- 
markable that his first successful speech was crit- 
icised for its vehemence and bitterness of tone, 
and for the shrillness and excessive effort of the 
speaker's voice. It seems probable that the 
embarrassing circumstances of his position while 
addressing an unsympathizing body of legislators, 
combined with a sense of his own inexperience, 
may have produced. the appearance of excessive 
vehemence of manner. 






32 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Nature has stamped on the person of this re- 
markable man the qualities of his mind and tem- 
perament. His face is singularly handsome, and 
at a first glance might even appear too delicate 
to be strong. The nose is long and thin and 
carved, not moulded ; the mouth is well cut ; the 
cheeks are pallid ; the forehead perfectly round, 
as round and as striking as the forehead of the 
first Napoleon ; and the eyes are dark and un- 
fathomable. The passer-by in the streets, taking 
a casual look at those beautifully chiselled 
features and at the air of perfect tranquillity, 
would be inclined to think that Mr. Parnell was a 
very handsome young man, who probably had 
graduated at West Point, and would in due time 
die in a skirmish with the Indians. But a closer 
look would show the great possibilities beneath 
this face. The mouth, especially the under lip, 
speaks of a grip that never loosens ; the eye, 
when it is fixed, tells of the inflexible will be- 
neath ; and the tranquillity of the expression is 
the tranquillity of the nature that wills and wins. 
Similarly with his figure. It looks slight almost 
to frailty ; but a glance will show that the bones 
are large, the hips broad, and the walk firm ; in 
fact, Mr. Parnell tramps the ground rather than 
walks. The hands are firm, and even the way 
they grasp a pencil has a significance. 

This picture of Parnell is very unlike the por- 
traits which have been formed of him by the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 33 

imagination of those who have never met him. 
When he was first in the storm and stress of the 
era of obstruction, he used to be portrayed in the 
truthful pages of English comic journalism with a 
battered hat, a long upper lip, a shillelah in his 
hand, a clay pipe in his caubeen. Even to this 
day portraits after this fashion appear in the 
lower-class journals that think the caricature of 
the Irish face the best of all possible jokes. Par- 
nell is passionately fond of Ireland ; is happier 
and healthier on its soil than in any other part of 
the world, and is almost bigoted in the intensity 
of his patriotism. But he might easily be taken 
for a native of another country. Residence for 
the first years of his life in English schools has 
given him a strong English accent and an essen- 
tially English manner ; and from his American 
mother he has got, in all probability, the healthy 
pallor, the delicate chiselling, the impassive look, 
and the resolute eye that are typical of the chil- 
dren of the great Republic. 

Such is the man in brief who to-day is perhaps 
the most potent personality in all the many na- 
tions and many races of the earth. The Russian 
Czar rules wider domains and more subjects ; but 
his sway has to be backed by more than a million 
armed men, and he passes much of his time shiv- 
ering before the prospect of a sudden and awful 
death at the hands of the infuriated among his 
own people. The German is a more multitude- 



34 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

nous race than the Irish and almost as widely 
scattered ; but Bismarck requires also the protec- 
tion of a mighty army and of cruel coercion laws, 
and the German who leaves the Fatherland re- 
gards with abhorrence the political ideas with 
which Bismarck is proud to associate his name. 
Gladstone exercises an almost unparalleled sway 
over the minds, hearts, imaginations of English- 
men ; but nearly one-half of his people regard 
him as the incarnation of all evil ; and shallow- 
pated lieutenants, great only in self-conceit, dare 
to beard and defy and flout him. But Parnell has 
not one solitary soldier at his command ; the jail 
has opened for him and not for his enemies, and 
except for a miserable minority he is adored by 
all the Irish at home, and adored even more fer- 
vently by the Irish who will never see — in some 
cases who have never seen — the shores of the 
Green Isle again. In one way or another, 
through intermixture with the blood of other 
peoples, the Irish race can lay claim to some 
twenty millions of the human race. Out of all 
these twenty millions the people who do not re- 
gard Parnell as their leader may be counted by 
the few hundreds of thousands. In cities sepa- 
rated from his home or place of nativity by oceans 
and continents, men meet at his command, and 
spill their money for the cause he recommends. 
Meetings called under his auspices gather daily 
in every one of the vast States of America, in 



the great irish struggle. 35 

Canada, in Cape Colony; and the primeval woods 
of Australia have echoed to the cheers for his 
name. But this is but a superficial view of his 
power. A nation, under his guidance, has shed 
many of its traditional weaknesses; from being im- 
pulsive has grown cool and calculating ; from being 
disunited and discordant has welded itself into 
iron bands of discipline and solidarity. In a race 
scattered over every variety of clime and soil and 
government, and in every stratum of the social 
scale from the lowest to the highest, there are 
men of every variety of character and occupation 
and opinion. In other times the hatred of these 
men over their differences of method was more 
bitter than their hatred for the common enemy 
who loathed alike their ends and their means. 
Now they all alike sink into equality of agree- 
ment before the potent name of Parnell, high and 
low, timid and daring, moderate and extreme. 
Republics change their Presidents, colonies their 
governors and ministers ; in England now it is 
Gladstone and now it is Salisbury that rules; but 
Parnell remains stable and immovable, the apex 
of a pyramid that stretches invisible over many 
lands and seas, as resistless apparently as fate, 
solid as granite, durable as time. 

It was many years before the world had any 
idea of this new and potent force that was coming 
into its councils and affairs. Charles Stewart 
Parnell was born in June, 1846. He is descended 



36 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

from a family that had long been associated with 
the political life of Ireland. The family came 
originally from Congleton, in Cheshire; but like 
so many others of English origin had in time 
proved its right to the proud boast of being 
Hibernior Hibernis ipsis. So far back as the 
beginning of the last century a Parnell sat for an 
Irish constituency in the Irish Parliament. At the 
time of the Union a Parnell held high office, and 
was one of those who gave the most substantial 
proof of the reality of his love for the independ- 
ence of his country. Sir John Parnell at the 
time was Chancellor of the Exchequer and had 
held the office for no less than seventeen years. 
It was one of the vices of the old Irish Parliament 
even in the days after Grattan had attained com- 
parative freedom in 1782 that the Ministers were 
creatures of the Crown and not responsible to and 
removable by the Parliament of which they were 
members. There was everything, then, in these 
years of service as a representative of the Crown 
to have transformed Sir John Parnell into a time- 
serving and corrupt courtier. But Sir John Bar- 
ington, the best known chronicler of the days of 
the Irish Union, describes Sir John Parnell in his 
list of contemporary Irishmen as " Incorruptible;" 
and " Incorruptible " he proved ; for he resigned 
office and resisted the Act of Union to the bitter 
end. A son of Sir John Parnell — Henry Parnell 
— was afterwards for many years a prominent 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 37 

member of the British Parliament, became a Cab- 
inet Minister, and was ultimately raised to the 
Peerage as the first Baron Congleton. John 
Henry Parnell was a grandson of Sir John Parnell. 
In his younger days he went on a tour through 
America ; there met Miss Stewart, the daughter 
of Commodore Stewart, fell in love with her, and 
was married in Broadway. It is unnecessary to 
speak to Americans of the immortal " Old Iron- 
sides." Suffice it to say that the bravery, calm- 
ness, and strength of will which were characteris- 
tic of the brave commander of the " Constitution " 
are inherited by his grandson, the bearer of his 
name ; for the full name of Mr. Parnell, as is 
known, is " Charles Stewart Parnell." There was 
also something significant in the fact that the man 
who was destined to prove the most potent foe 
of British misrule in Ireland should have drawn 
his blood on the mother's side from a captain who 
was one of the few men that ever brought humili- 
ation on the proud mistress of the seas. 

The young Parnell, chiefly because he was a 
delicate child, was sent to various schools in 
England during his boyhood, and finally went to 
Cambridge University — the university of his 
father. Here he stayed for a couple of years, and 
for a considerable time thought of becoming a 
lawyer. But he changed his purpose, with a 
regret that sometimes even in these days of 
supreme political glory finds wistful expression. 



38 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Almost immediately after his years at Cam- 
bridge he went abroad for a tour ; and like his 
father he chose America as the first place to visit. 
While travelling through Georgia — where his 
brother has now a great peach-orchard — he met 
with a railway accident. He escaped unhurt; 
but John, his elder brother, was injured; and 
John says to this day that he never had so good 
a nurse as " Charley." Then Mr. Parnell came 
back to his home in Avondale, County Wicklow, 
and gave himself up to the occupations and 
amusements of a country gentleman. At this time 
he was known as a reticent and rather retiring- 
young man. He must have had his opinions 
though; for he was brought up in a strongly 
political environment. Probably owing to her 
father's blood Mrs. Parnell had always a lively 
sympathy with the rebels against British oppres- 
sion in Ireland. She had a house in Dublin at 
the time when the ranks of Fenianism had been 
descended upon by the government ; and when 
in Green Street Court-house, with the aid of in- 
formers, packed juries, and partisan judges, the 
desperate soldiers of Ireland's cause were being 
consigned in quick and regular succession to the 
living death of penal servitude. There were in 
various parts of the city fugitives from what was 
called in these days justice ; and among the places 
where most of these fugitives found a temporary 
asylum and ultimately a safe flight to freer lands 



THE GREAT TRTSTI STRUGGLE: 39 

and till better days was the house of Mrs. Parnell. 
Fanny Parnell is also one of the family figures 
that played a large part in the creation of the 
opinions of her brother. At an early age she 
showed her poetic talents ; and from the first 
these talents were devoted to the description of 
the sufferings of Ireland and to appeals to her 
sons to rise against Ireland's wrongs. When the 
Fenian movement was in its full strength it had 
an organ in Dublin called The Irish People ; and 
into the office of The Irish People Fanny Parnell 
stole often with a patriotic poem. 

In the midst of these surroundings came the 
news of the execution of the Manchester Martyrs. 
The effect of that event upon the people of Ire- 
land was extraordinary. The three men hanged 
had taken part in the rescue of two prominent 
Fenian soldiers. In the scrimmage a policeman, 
Sergeant Brett, had been accidentally killed, and 
for this accidental death several men were put on 
their trial for murder. The trial took place in 
one of the periodical outbursts of fury which un- 
happily used to take place between England and 
Ireland. The juries were prejudiced, the judges 
not too calm, and the evidence far from trust- 
worthy. Three men — Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien 
■ — were sentenced to death. Though many hu- 
mane Englishmen pleaded for mercy, the law was 
allowed to take its course, and Allen, Larkin, and 
O'Brien were executed. A wild cry of hate and 



40 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

sorrow rose from Ireland. In every town multi- 
tudes of men walked in funeral procession, and to 
this day the poem of " God Save Ireland," which 
commemorates the memory of Allen, Larkin, and 
O'Brien, is the most popular of Irish songs. 

To anybody acquainted with the nature of Mr. 
Parnell it will be easy to understand the effect 
which such a tragedy would have upon his mind. 
If there be one quality more developed than an- 
other in his nature it is a hatred of cruelty. 
When he was a magistrate he had brought before 
him a man charged with cruelty to a donkey. 
Fanny Parnell was the person who had the man 
rendered up to justice, and her brother strongly 
sympathized with her efforts. The man was con- 
victed, and was sentenced to pay a fine of thirty 
shillings. The miscreant might as well have been 
asked to pay the national debt, and the fine was a 
sentence of prolonged imprisonment. The sequel 
of the story is characteristic of the family. Miss 
Parnell herself paid the fine and released' the ruf- 
fian. It was his strong sympathy with suffering 
and his hatred of cruelty that first impelled Mr. 
Parnell to lead the crusade against the use of the 
odious lash in the British army and navy. So 
deep, indeed, is his abhorrence of cruelty and 
even of bloodshed, that he is strongly opposed to 
capital punishment; and once, when one of his 
colleagues voted against a motion condemnatory 
of capital punishment in the House of Commons, he 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 41 

expressed the hope, half joke, whole earnest, that 
some day that colleague might be taught a lesson 
by being himself hanged as a rebel. The Man- 
chester tragedy then touched Parnell in his most 
tender point, and from that time forward he was 
an enemy of English domination in Ireland. 

But he seemed to be in no hurry to put his 
convictions into action. He is not a man of ex- 
uberant enjoyment of life. He has too little 
imagination and too much equability for ecstasies, 
but he enjoys the hour, has many and varied in- 
terests in life, and could never, by any possibility, 
sink to a slothful or a melancholy dreamer. His 
proud and self-respecting nature, too, saved him 
from any tendency towards that wretched and 
squalid viciousness which is the characteristic of 
so many landlords' lives in Ireland. He is essen- 
tially temperate; eats but plainly, and drinks 
nothing but a small quantity of claret. Nor could 
he descend to the pure horsiness which makes so 
many country gentlemen regard the stableman's 
as the highest of arts and pursuits. 

One of the reasons why Mr. Parnell delayed 
his entrance into public life was the state of Irish 
politics at that moment. There was little move- 
ment in the country of a constitutional character. 
The representation was in the hands of knavish 
office-holders or office-seekers. The professions 
of political faith were so many lies, and the con- 
stituencies distrustful of all chance of relief from 



42 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the Legislature, allowed themselves to be bought, 
that they might afterwards be sold. All that was 
earnest and energetic and honest in Ireland 
sought relief for her misery in desperate enter- 
prises, or stood aside until better days and more 
auspicious stars. Then the landlords of the coun- 
try remained entirely, or almost entirely, aloof 
from the popular movements. With the single 
exception of the late Mr. George Henry Moore, 
the representation of Ireland was abandoned by 
the country gentlemen, who in other times had 
occasionally rushed out of their own ranks and 
taken up the side of the people. It is a curious 
fact, but the man who, perhaps, had more influ- 
ence than almost any other in bringing Mr. Par- 
nell into the arena of Irish nationality, has himself 
proved a recreant to the cause. 

In 1871 was fought the Kerry election. This 
election marked one of the turning-points in the 
modern history of Ireland. During the Fenian 
trials Isaac Butt was the most prominent figure in 
defending the prisoners. He was a man who had 
started life with great expectations and supreme 
talents. Before he was many years in Trinity 
College, Ireland's oldest university, he was a pro- 
fessor ; he had been only six years at the bar 
when he was made a Queen's counsel. He was 
the son of a Protestant rector of the North of Ire- 
land, and adhered for some years to the prejudices 
in which he had been reared. In his early days 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 43 

every good thing in Ireland belonged to the 
Protestants. The Catholics were an outlawed 
and alien race in their own country. O'Connell, 
not many years before, had carried Catholic 
emancipation, but Catholic emancipation was alive 
only in the letter. The offices— the judgeships, 
the fellowships in Trinity College, the shrievalties, 
everything of value or power — were still exclusive- 
ly in the hands of the Protestants. O'Connell, in 
1843, was so thoroughly sick and tired of vain ap- 
peals to the English Legislature that he resolved 
to start once again a demand for a native Irish 
Legislature. He opened the agitation by a de- 
bate in the Dublin Corporation, and Butt, who was 
a member of that body, though he was but a 
young man, was chosen by the Conservatives to 
oppose O'Connell, and delivered a speech so 
effective that O'Connell himself complimented his 
youthful opponent, and foretold the advent of a 
time when Butt himself would be among the ad- 
vocates instead of the opponents of an Irish Leg- 
islature. It was not till a quarter of a century 
afterward that this prophecy was realized. Butt, 
immediately after the Fenian trials, began an 
agitation for amnesty, and in this way gradually 
went forward to a primary place in the confidence 
and in the affections of his countrymen. There 
were still some people who believed in the power 
and the willingness of the English Parliament to 
redress all the wrongs of Ireland, and there was 



44 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

some justification for this faith in the fact that 
William Ewart Gladstone was then at the head of 
the English state, and was passing the Disestab- 
lishment of the Irish Church, the Land Act of 
1870, and the Ballot Act, three measures which 
mark the renaissance of Irish nationality. But 
one of these very measures Isaac Butt was able 
to show was the very strongest proof of the neces- 
sity for an Irish Legislature. The Land Act of 
1870 is an act the defects of which have passed 
from the region of controversy. Mr. Gladstone 
himself offered the strongest proof of its break- 
down by proposing in 1881 an entirely different 
Land Act. In fact it would not be impossible to 
show that in some respects the Land Act of 1870 
aggravated instead of mitigated the evils of Irish 
land tenure. It put no restraint on the raising of 
rents, and rents were raised more mercilessly than 
ever; it impeded, but it did not arrest eviction ; it 
caused as much emigration from Ireland as ever. 
Yet all Ireland had unanimously demanded a dif- 
ferent bill. Mass-meetings all over the country 
had demonstrated the wish of the people, and ex- 
pectation had been wrought to a high point. The 
fruit of it all had been the halting and miserable 
measure of 1870. 

It was this fact that gave the farmers into the 
hands of Butt. The population of the towns was 
always ready to receive and to support any Na- 
tional leader who advocated an Irish Parliament; 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 45 

indeed there is scarcely a year since the Act of 
Union in 1800 when the overwhelming majority 
of the Irish people were not in favor of the resto- 
ration of an Irish Parliament. At that moment, 
too, another force was working in favor of a re- 
newed agitation for Home Rule. The Protestants 
were bitterly exasperated by the Disestablishment 
of the Irish Church. Some of the more. extreme 
Orangemen had made the same threats then as 
they are making now, and, while professing the 
strongest loyalty to the Queen, had used lan- 
guage of vehement disloyalty. For instance, one 
Orange clergyman had declared that if the Queen 
should consent to the Disestablishment, the 
Orangemen would throw her crown into the 
Boyne. To the Irish Protestants Butt could ap- 
peal with more force than any other man. He 
was an Irish Protestant himself, brought up in 
their religious creed and in their political preju- 
dices. He made the appeal with success, and it 
was Irish Protestants that took the largest share 
in starting the great Irish movement of to-day. 
The Home Rule movement received definite form 
for the first time at a meeting in the Bilton Hotel 
on May 19, 1870. It was held in the Bilton 
Hotel in Sackville (now O'Connell) street, and 
among those who were present and took a promi- 
nent part were Isaac Butt, a Protestant ; the Rev. 
Joseph Galbraith, a Protestant clergyman and a 
Fellow of Trinity College; Mr. Purdon, a Prot 



46 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

estant, and then Conservative Lord Mayor of 
Dublin ; Mr. Kinahan, a Protestant, who had been 
High Sheriff of Dublin ; Major Knox, a Protes- 
tant, and the proprietor of the Irish Times, the 
chief Conservative organ of Dublin, and finally 
Colonel' King Harman, a Protestant, who has 
since gone over to the enemy and become one of 
the bitterest opponents of the movement which he 
was largely responsible in starting. 

It was a Protestant, too, that won a victory that 
was decisive. In 1871 there was a vacancy in the 
representation of the County of Kerry. At once 
the new movement resolved to make an appeal 
to the constituency in the name of the revived de- 
mand for the restoration of an Irish Parliament. 
The friends of Whiggery, on the other hand, 
were just as resolved that the old bad system 
should be defended vigorously. And this elec- 
tion at Kerry deserves to be gravely dwelt on by 
those who regard the present movement as a sec- 



£> 



P 



tarian and a distinctly CathcJic movement. The 
Whig candidate was a Catholic — Mr. James Ar- 
thur Dease, a man of property, of great intellect- 
ual powers, and of a stainless character ; and Mr. 
Dease was supported vehemently and passion 
ately by Dr. Moriarty, the Catholic Bishop of the 
Diocese of Kerry. The Home Rule candidate on 
the other hand was a Protestant — Mr. Rowland 
Ponsonby Blennerhassett ; and he had but few ad- 
herents among the Catholic clergy of the diocese ; 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ^ 

and the clergy who did support him fell under 
the displeasure of their bishop. The struggle 
was fought out with terrible energy and much 
bitterness ; the end was that the feeling of Na- 
tionality triumphed over all the influence of the 
British authorities and of the Catholic bishop, and 
Blennerhassett, the Protestant Home Rule candi- 
date, was returned. 

Blennerhassett belonged to the same class as 
Mr. Parnell. He was-a landlord, a Protestant, and 
a Home Ruler. Mr! Parnell was a landlord, a 
Protestant, and a Home Ruler. The time had ap- 
parently come when constitutional agitation had a 
fair chance ; and when men of property who sym- 
pathized with the people would be welcomed into 
the National ranks. A few years after this came 
the general election, of 1874; and Mr. Parnell 
thought that his time of self-distrust and hesita- 
tion had passed ; and that he might put himself 
forward as a National candidate. But his chance 
was destroyed by a small technicality of which 
the government took advantage. It is the cus- 
tom in Ireland to appoint young men of station 
and property to the position of high sheriffs of 
the counties in which they live. The high sheriff 
cannot stand for the constituency in which he- 
holds office unless he be permitted by the Crown 
to resign his office. Mr. Parnell applied for this 
permission and was refused. And thus in all 
probability he was unable to represent his native 



48 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

county in Parliament. But he had not long to 
wait. When a member of Parliament accepts 
office he has to resign his seat in the British 
Parliament and submit himself once more to the 
votes of his constituency. A Colonel Taylor, a 
veteran and rather stupid hack of the Tory party, 
was promoted by Mr. Disraeli to the position of 
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — a well- 
paid sinecure — after many years' service as one 
of the whips of the party. Colonel Taylor was 
member for County Dublin. He had to seek 
re-election on his appointment to the chancellor- 
ship ; and Mr. Parnell resolved to oppose him. 

Mr. Parnell was beaten, of course, by a huge 
majority ; for in those days, though the majority 
of the people of County Dublin were, as they are 
now, energetic Nationalists, the franchise suffrage 
was so restricted that a small minority was able 
to always win # the seat. But Mr. Parnell had 
borne himself well in the struggle ; and though he 
was held to be absolutely devoid of speaking 
power, yet he made many friends and admirers 
by the pluck with which he fought a forlorn 
hope. The next year the man who had been 
chiefly instrumental in bringing him into public 
life died — honest John Martin. At the time of 
his death John Martin was member for County 
Meath. The county, always strongly National, 
looked for a man capable of stepping into the place 
of a noble patriot. Parnell was selected, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 49 

Parnell was now at last embarked on the career 
of an Irish politician. He had not been long in 
the House when he discovered that thing's were 
not as they should be, and that the movement, 
though it appeared powerful to the outside pub- 
lic, was internally weak and to some extent even 
rotten. Butt, the leader of the Irish party, was a 
man of great intellectual powers, and was hon- 
estly devoted to the success of the cause. He 
was ready also to work very hard himself, and he 
drafted all the bills that were brought in on va- 
rious subjects by his followers. But he was old, 
had lived an exhausting life, was steeped in debt, 
and had to divide his time and energies between 
the calls of his profession as a lawyer and his 
duties as a legislator. Such double calls are 
especially harassing in the case of a man who is at 
once an Irish lawyer and an Irish politician. The 
law courts are in Dublin, the imperial Parliament 
is in London ; the journey between the two cities, 
part by sea and part by land, is fatiguing even to 
a young man, and thus it was quite impossible that 
Butt could attend to his duties as a lawyer in 
Dublin and as a politician in London without 
damage to both. This seriously interfered with 
his efficiency, and was partly accountable for the 
break-down of himself and his party. 

But he had, besides, personal defects that made 
him unfit for difficult and stormy times. He was 
a soft-tempered, easy-going man who was without 



50 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

much moral courage, incapable of saying No, and 
with a thousand amiable weaknesses which leaned 
to virtue«s side as a man, but were far from vir- 
tuous in the politician. As a speaker he was the 
most persuasive of men. He discussed with such 
candor, with such logic, with temper so beautiful, 
that even his bitterest opponents had to listen to 
him with respect. But the House of Commons 
has respect only for men who have votes behind 
them, and can turn divisions, and Butt was unable 
to turn divisions. 

This brings us to the second defect in the Home 
Rule party of Butt. Most of his followers were 
rotten office-seekers. When in 1874 Butt had an 
opportunity of getting a party elected he was 
beset by the great weakness of all Irish move- 
ments — the want of money. The electoral insti- 
tutions of England were, and to a certain extent 
still are, such as to make political careers impossi- 
ble to any but the rich or the fairly rich. The 
costs of election are large, members of Parliament 
have no salary, and living in .London is dear; and 
thus as a rule nobody has any chance of entering 
into political life unless he has a pretty full purse. 
The result was that when the contest came Butt 
was in a painful dilemma. The constituencies 
were all right, and were willing to return an hon- 
est Nationalist, but there were no honest candi- 
dates, for there was no prospect but starvation to 
anybody who entered into political life without 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 51 

considerable means. Butt himself was terribly 
pressed for money at that very moment. He had 
to fly from a warrant for debt on the very morn- 
ing when Mr. Gladstone's manifesto was issued, 
and John Barry, now one of the members for 
County Wexford, tells an amusing tale of how he 
received the then Irish leader in the early morn 
at Manchester, where Barry lived. It was from 
England that Mr. Butt had to direct the electoral 
campaign, and his resources for the whole thing 
amounted to a few hundred pounds. To Ameri- 
can readers these facts ought especially to be 
told, for they serve two objects: First, they show 
how it is that though the feeling of Ireland has 
always been strongly National, representatives of 
these opinions have not found a place in Parlia- 
ment until a comparatively recent period; and 
secondly, because they bring out clearly the enor- 
mous influence which America has exercised in the 
later phases of Irish policy by her generous sub- 
scriptions to the combatants for human rights and 
human liberty in Ireland. 

The result of all these circumstances was that 
Butt was compelled to fight constituencies with 
such men as turned up, and in the majority of 
cases to be satisfied with the old men under new 
pledges. Of course, these old representativea 
were quite as ready to adopt the new princi- 
ples of Home Rule as they would have adopted 
any other principles that secured them re-election, 



52 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and through re-election the opportunity of selling 
themselves for office. Many of the members of 
the Home Rule party of 1874 were men, accord- 
ingly, who had been twenty or thirty years engaged 
in the ignoble work of seeking pay or pensions 
from the British authorities, and as ready as ever 
to sell themselves. Of course, such a spirit was 
entirely destructive of any chance of getting real 
good from Parliament. The English ministers 
felt that they were dealing with a set of men 
whose votes they could buy, and were not going 
to take any steps for the redress of the grievances 
of a country that was thus represented. 

It was no wonder, then, that when Mr. Parnell 
entered Parliament he at once began to meet with 
painful disillusions. Mr. Butt's plan of action was 
to bring forward measures, to have them skilfully 
and temperately discussed, and then to submit to 
the vote when it went against him. The Home 
Rule question was opened every year. Mr. Butt 
himself introduced the subject in a speech of'great 
constitutional knowledge, of intense closeness of 
reasoning, and of a statesmanship the sagacity of 
which is now proved by the adoption of Butt's 
views by the leading statesmen of England. Then 
the leaders of both the English parties got up; 
each in turn condemned the proposal with equal 
emphasis; the division was called; Whig and 
Tory went into the same lobby; the poor Irish 
party was borne down by hundreds of English 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 55 

votes, and Home Rule was dead for another year. 
Parnell's mind is eminently practical. Great 
speeches, splendid meetings, imposing proces- 
sions—all these things are as nothing to him 
unless they bring material results. He was as 
great an admirer as anybody else of the genius 
of Isaac Butt, but he could see no good whatever 
in great speeches and full-dress debates that left 
the Irish question exactly where it was before. 
He saw, too, that Isaac Butt was the victim of one 
great illusion. Butt founded his whole policy on 
appeals to and faith in the reason of the House 
of Commons. Parnell saw very clearly that at 
that period the keeper of the conscience in the 
House of Commons on the Irish question was the 
division lobby. "Appeal to the good sense and 
good feeling of the House of Commons," said 
Butt; and the House of Commons replied by 
quietly but effectually telling him that it didn't 
care a pin about his feelings or his opinions — its 
resolution was fixed never to grant Home Rule 
to Ireland. Parnell naturally began to think of 
an opposite policy. "Attack the House through 
its own interests and convenience," said he to 
Butt, "and then you need not beg it — you can 
force it to listen." 

When Parnell entered into Parliament there 
was already another member there whose mind 
was of an even more realistic order than his own. 
At the general election of 1874 Joseph Gillis Big- 



5G GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

gar had been returned for the County of Cavan. 
Biggar is an excellent type of the hard-headed 
Northerner. He was all his life in the pork 
trade, and had the reputation of being one of the 
closest, keenest and most successful businessmen 
of Belfast. Biggar is not a man who has read 
much — he does not even read the newspapers 
which contain attacks upon himself; but he has 
an extremely shrewd, penetrating mind, a judg- 
ment that is often narrow but is nearly always 
sound, and that once formed is unchangeable by 
friend or foe. But above all things, Biggar has 
extraordinary and marvellous courage. This 
courage exhibits itself in small as well as in big 
things. He has the couragfe to refuse an exorbi- 
tant fare to a cabman or a fee to a waiter; will 
oppose the best friend as readily as the bitterest 
enemy if he think him wrong; can speak unpleas- 
ant truths without the least qualms; and is not so 
much indifferent as unconscious of what other 
people say about him. In these respects he was 
the very opposite of poor Butt, who was childishly 
sensitive to opinion either of friend or foe. Big- 
gar had been greatly disgusted with the way 
things were going in the House of Commons even 
before Parnell had become his colleague. He 
has a wonderfully keen eye in seeing through 
falsehood and pretense, and if he be once con- 
vinced that a man is dishonest he loathes him for- 
ever afterwards. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 57 

Joseph Gillis Biggak was born in Belfast, on 
August i, 1828. He was educated at the Belfast 
Academy, where he remained from 1832 to 1844. 
The record of his school-days is far from satisfac- 
tory. He was very indolent — at least he says so 
himself— he showed no great love of reading — 
he was poor at composition, and, of course, ab- 
jectly hopeless at elocution. The one talent he 
did exhibit was a talent for figures. It was, per- 
haps, this want of any particular success in learn- 
ing, as well as delicacy of health, which made Mr. 
Biggar's parents conclude that he had better be 
removed from school and placed at business. He 
was taken into his father's office in the provision 
trade, and he continued as assistant until 1861, 
when he became head of the firm. 

Mr. Biggar's first attempt to enter Parliament 
was made at Londonderry in 1872. He had not 
the least idea of being successful ; but he had at 
this time mentally formulated the policy which he 
has since carried out with inflexible purpose — he 
preferred the triumph of an open enemy to that 
of a half-hearted friend. The candidates were 
Mr. Lewis, Mr. (afterwards Chief Baron) Palles, 
and Mr. Bio-oar. At that moment Mr. Palles, as 
Attorney-General, was prosecuting Dr. Duggan 
and other Catholic bishops for the part they had 
taken in the famous Gal way election of Colonel 
Nolan— and Mr. Biggar made it a first and indis- 
pensable condition of his withdrawing from the 



4 



58 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

contest that these prosecutions should be dropped. 
Mr. Palles refused; Mr. Biggar received only 89 
votes, but the Whig was defeated, and he was 
satisfied. The bold fight he had made marked 
out Mr. Biggar as the man to lead one of the as- 
saults which at this time the rising Home Rule 
party was beginning to make on the seats of 
Whig and Tory. He himself was in favor of try- 
ing his hand on some place where the fighting 
would be really serious, and he had an idea of 
contesting Monaghan. When the general elec- 
tion of 1874, however, came, it was represented 
to Mr. Bigoar that he would better serve the 
cause by standing for Cavan. He was nominated, 
and returned, and member for Cavan he has since 
remained. Finally, let the record of the purely 
personal part of Mr. Biggar's history conclude 
with mention of the fact that, in the January of 
1877, he was' received into the Catholic Church. 
The change of creed for a time produced a slight 
estrangement between himself and the other 
members of his family, who were staunch Ulster 
Presbyterians, and there were not w r anting mali- 
cious intruders who sought to widen the breach. 
But this unpleasantness soon passed away, and 
Mr. Biggar is now on the very best of terms with 
his relatives. 

Not long after the night of Mr. Biggar's cele- 
brated four hours' speech, a young Irish member 
took his seat for the first time. This was Mr. 



JTHE GREAT tRTRH STRUGGLE. 59 

Parnell, elected lor the county ot Meath in suc- 
cession to John Martin. The veteran and incor- 
ruptible patriot had died a few days before the; 
opening of this new chapter in Irish struggle. 
There was a strange fitness in his end. John 
Mitchel had been returned for the county of Tip- 
perary in 1875. After twenty-six years of exile 
he had paid a brief visit to his native country in 
the previous year. He had triumphed at last 
over an unjust sentence, penal servitude, and the 
weary waiting of all these hapless years, and had 
been selected as its representative by the premier 
constituency of Ireland. But the victory came 
too late. When he reached Ireland to fight the 
election he was a dying man. A couple of weeks 
after his return to his native land he was seized 
with his last illness, and after a few days suc- 
cumbed, in the home of his early youth and sur- 
rounded by some of his earliest friends. John 
Martin had been brought by Mitchel into the na- 
tional faith when they were both young me-n. 
They had' been sentenced to transportation about 
the same time ; they had married two sisters ; they 
had both remained inflexibly attached to the same 
national faith throughout the long years of dis- 
aster that followed the breakdown of their at- 
tempted revolution. Martin, though very ill, and 
in spite of the most earnest remonstrances of 
friends, went over to be present at the death-bed 
of his life-long leader and friend. 



60 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

At the funeral he caught cold, sickened, and in 
a few days died. He was buried close to Mitchel's 
grave. 

After Mr. Parnell's first election to Parliament, 
he, in common with his associate, Mr. Biggar, was 
deeply impressed by considering- the impotence 
that had' fallen upon the Irish party. Both were 
men eager for practical results, and debates, how- 
ever ornate and eloquent, which resulted in no 
benefit, appeared to them the sheerest waste of 
time, and a mockery of their country's hopes and 
demands. Probably they drifted into the policy 
of " obstruction," so called, rather than pursued it 
in accordance with a definite plan originally 
thought out. There was in the Irish party at this 
time a man who had formulated the idea from 
close reflection on the methods of Parliament. 
This was Mr. Joseph Ronayne, who had been an 
enthusiastic Young Irelander, and though, amid the 
disillusions that followed the breakdown of 1848, 
he- had probably bidden farewell forever to 
armed insurrection as a method for redressing 
Irish grievances, he still held by an old and stern 
gospel of Irish nationality, and thought that polit 
ical ends were to be gained not by soft words, but 
by stern and relentless acts. He, if anybody, de- 
serves the credit of having pointed out, first to 
Mr. Biggar and then to Mr. Parnell, the methods 
of action which have since proved so effective in 
the cause of Ireland. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 61 

When one now looks back upon the task 
which these two men set themselves, it will 
appear one of the boldest, most difficult, and 
most hopeless that two individuals ever proposed 
to themselves to work out. 

They set out, two of them, to do battle against 
650 ; they had before them enemies who, in the 
ferocity of a common hate and a common terror, 
forgot old quarrels and obliterated old party lines ; 
while among their own party there were false men 
who hated their honesty and many true men who 
doubted their sagacity. In this work of theirs 
they had to meet a perfect hurricane of hate and 
abuse; they had to stand face to face with the 
practical omnipotence of the mightiest of modern 
empires ; they were accused of seeking to tram- 
ple on the power of the English House of Com- 
mons, and six centuries of parliamentary govern- 
ment looked down upon them in menace and in 
reproach. In carrying their mighty enterprise,. 
Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar had to undergo 
labors and sacrifices that only those acquainted 
with the inside life of Parliament can fully appre- 
ciate. Those who undertook to conquer the 
House of Commons had first to conquer much of 
the natural man in themselves. The House of 
Commons is the arena which gives the choicest 
food to the intellectual vanity of the British sub- 
ject, and the House of Commons loves and re- 
spects only those who love and respect it. But 



62 • GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

•the first principle of the active policy was that 
there should be absolute indifference to the opin- 
ion of the House of Commons, and so vanity had 
first to be crushed out. Then the active policy 
demanded incessant attendance in the House, and 
incessant attendance in the House amounts almost 
to a punishment. And the active policy required, 
in addition to incessant attendance, considerable 
preparation ; and so the idleness, which is the 
most potent of all. human passions, had to be 
gripped and strangled with a merciless hand. 
And finally, there was to be no shrinking from 
speech or act because it disobliged one man or 
offended another; and therefore, kindliness of 
feeling was to be watched and guarded by re- 
morseless purpose. The three years of fierce 
conflict, of labor by day and by night, and of iron 
resistance to menace, or entreaty, or blandish- 
ment, must have left many a deep mark in mind 
and in body. " Parnell," remarked one of Ills' fol- 
lowers in the House of Commons one day, as the 
Irish leader entered with pallid and worn face, 
"Parnell has done mighty things, but he had to 
go through fire and water to do them." 

Mr. Biggar was heard of before Mr. Parnell 
had made himself known ; and to estimate his 
character — and it is a character worth study — one 
must read carefully, and by tire light of the 
present day, the events of the period at which he 
first started on his enterprise. In the session of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (33 

1875 he was constantly heard of; on April 27 in 
that session he " espied strangers ; " and, in ac- 
cordance with the then existing rales of the House 
of Commons, all the occupants of the different 
galleries, excepting those of the ladies' gallery, 
had to retire. The Prince of Wales was among 
the distinguished visitors to the assembly on this 
particular evening, a fact which added considera- 
ble effect to the proceeding of the member for 
Cavan. At once a storm burst upon him, be- 
neath which even a very strong man might have 
bent. Mr. Disraeli, the Prime Minister, got up, 
amid cheers from all parts of the House, to de- 
nounce this outrage upon its dignity ; and to mark 
the complete union of the two parties against the 
daring offender, Lord Hartington rose imme- 
diately afterwards. Nor were these the only 
quarters from which attack came. Members of 
his own party joined in the general assault upon 
the audacious violator of the tone of the House. 
Mr. Biggar was, above all other things, held to be 
wanting in the instincts of a gentleman. " I 
think," said the late Mr. George Bryan, another 
member of Mr. Butt's party, "that a man should 
be a gentleman first and a patriot afterwards," a 
statement which was, of course, received with 
wild cheers. Finally, the case, was summed up 
by Mr. Chaplin. "The honorable member for 
Cavan," said he, '" appears to forget that he is now 
admitted to the society of gentlemen." This was 



64 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

one of the many allusions, fashionable at the 
time — among genteel journalists especially — to 
Mr. Biggar's occupation. It was his heinous of- 
fence to have made his money in the wholesale 
pork trade. Caste among business men and 
their families is regulated, both in England and 
Ireland, not only by the distinction between 
wholesale and retail, but by the particular article 
in which the trader is interested. It was not, 
therefore, surprising that an assembly which tol- 
erated the more aristocratic cotton should turn up 
its indignant nose at the dealer in the humbler 
pork. But much as the House of Commons was 
shocked at the nature of Mr. Biggar's pursuits, 
the horror of the journalist was still more ex- 
treme and outspoken. " Heaven knows" (said a 
writer in the World), "that I do not scorn a man 
because his path in life has led him amongst pro- 
visions. But though I may unaffectedly honor a 
provision dealer who is a Member of Parliament, 
it is with quite another feeling that I behold a 
Member of Parliament who is a provision dealer. 
Mr. Bio-o-ar brines the manner' of his store into 
this illustrious assembly, and his manner, even for 
a Belfast store, is very bad. When he rises to 
address the House, which he did at least ten 
times to-night, a whiff of salt pork seems to float 
upon the gale, and the air is heavy with the odor 
of the kippered herring. One unacquainted with 
the actual condition of affairs might be forgiven if 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 65 

he thought there had been a large failure in the 
bacon trade, and that the House of Commons was 
a meeting of creditors, and the right honorable 
gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench were 
members of the defaulting firm, who, having con- 
fessed their inability to pay ninepence in the 
pound, were suitable and safe subjects for the 
abuse of an ungenerous creditor." 

These words are here quoted by way of illus- 
trating the symptoms of the times through which 
Mr. Biggar had to live, rather than because of any 
influence they had upon him. On this self-re- 
liant, firm, and masculine nature a world of ene- 
mies could make no impress. He did not even 
take the trouble to read the attacks upon him. 
The newspapers of the day were full of sarcasm 
against Mr. Biggar, the chief points made against 
him being directed at his alleged " grotesque ap- 
pearance " and "absurdity." Indeed, the impres- 
sion made upon such Americans as have derived 
their information regarding Irish affairs chiefly 
from the London periodicals has been that Mr. 
Biggar was a man of no sort of intelligence, and 
of no possible weight in Parliamentary counsels, 
but that he was simply a hornet who was always 
ready to sting John Bull's leathern sides. That 
this hornet was a sore annoyance it was very 
evident. That he was fearless and persistent 
was equally plain. No man was more ready to 
assert Biggar's lack of scholastic acquirement 



66 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

than he himself was prompt to admit the fact. 
Even the proud title of " father of obstruction " 
has been denied him, since obstructive action has 
long been recognized as a legitimate weapon in 
the hands of otherwise hopeless legislative mi- 
norities. Mr. BiofS'ar's real title to eminence lies 
largely in his persistence. He is emphatically a 
vir tenax propositi. Others may have had more 
definite plans for the future of Ireland. Others 
may have far excelled him in political skill and 
tactics. Beyond a doubt there are many others 
who surpass him in the gifts and graces of 
oratorical display. He does not despise these 
gifts ; he simply does not possess them, and he 
knows the fact right well. Another point in his 
favor is his singleness of purpose and childlike 
simplicity of character. A certain un-Irish insen- 
sibility to attack has also helped Mr. Biggar. 

The attacks made in the House of Commons 
in his own hearing- neither touch him nor an- 
ger him. The only rancor he ever feels against 
individuals is for the evil they attempt to do to the 
cause of his country. This little man, calmly and 
placidly accepting every humiliation and insult 
that hundreds of foes could heap upon him, in the 
relentless and untiring pursuit of a great purpose, 
may by-and-by appear, even to Englishmen, to 
merit all the affectionate respect with which he 
is regarded by men of his own country and 
principles. Before he was long a member 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. , gy 

of Butt's party he had seen that more than half 
the number were rascally self-seekers who didn't 
mean a word of what they said, and who were 
only looking out for the opportunity to don the 
English livery. 

And here, perhaps, it would be as well to pause 
for a moment and explain to an American reader 
what are the means which a British o-overnment 
has at its disposal for corrupting political oppo- 
nents. Few Americans realize the splendor of 
the prizes that are at the disposal of the British 
.authorities. Americans know that members of 
Parliament are paid no salary; they hear the 
boasts of the enormous and immaculate purity of 
public life in England; and they, many of them, 
infer that political life in England is preceded by 
the vows of purity and poverty. As a matter of 
fact, there is no country in the world in which 
politics has prizes so splendid to offer. The sala- 
ries reach proportions unexampled in ancient or 
modern times. The Lord Chancellor of England, 
for instance, has a salary of fifty thousand dollars 
a year as long as he is in office, and once he has 
held office — if it be only for an hour — he has a 
pension of twenty-five thousand -dollars a year for 
the remainder of his days. The Lord Chancellor, 
besides, has extraordinary privileges. He is the 
head of the judiciary of the country; he is Speaker 
of the House of Lords ; he is a peer with right of 
succession to his children ; he is a member of the* 



(58 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

cabinet. The Speaker of the House of Commons 
has a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars a 
year, a splendid house in the Parliament buildings; 
tire and light and coal free ; and when he retires 
he gets a pension of twenty thousand dollars a 
•/ear for life and a peerage. Several of the cab- 
inet ministers receive salaries of twenty-five 
thousand dollars a year. The Lord Chief-Justice 
of the Queen's Bench gets a salary of forty 
thousand dollars a year, and the puisne judges 
get a salary each of twenty-five thousand dollars 
a year. 

In Ireland — one of the poorest countries in the 
world — the official salaries are on almost an equal 
scale of extravagance. The Lord-Lieutenant re- 
i ives a salary of one hundred thousand dollars 
a year and many allowances. The Chief Secre- 
tary for Ireland receives a salary of twenty-five 
thousand dollars a year, with many allowances. 
The Lord Chancellor has a salary of forty thou- 
sand dollars a year during office, and, as in the 
case of the Lord Chancellor of England, has a 
pension for life even if he have held the office for 
but an hour; the pension is twenty thousand dol- 
lars a year. The Chief-Justice of the Queen's 
Bench Court has a salary of twenty-five thousand 
dollars a year ; and the puisne judges, who, as in 
England, hold their offices for life, have a salary 
of nineteen thousand dollars a year. The Attor- 
.ney-General in Ireland has a nominal salary of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 09 

$12,895, but he has fees besides ior every case in 
which he prosecutes ; and, as times of disturbance 
bring many prosecutions, he thrives on the un- 
happiness of the country. Frequently the salary 
of the Irish Attorney-General, in times of dis- 
quiet, has run up to fifty thousand dollars in the 
year, or even more. Then, as everybody knows, 
England has innumerable colonies, and in all her 
colonies there are richly paid offices. The average 
salary of a governor of a colony is twenty-five 
thousand dollars, and there are chief-justiceships, 
and puisne judgeships, and lieutenant-governor- 
ships, and a thousand and one other things which 
can always be placed at the disposal of an obe- 
dient and useful friend of the administration. 

The difficulty of the Irish struggle will be 
understood when it is recollected that, in antago- 
nism to all this, the Irish people have nothing to 
offer their faithful servants. In Ireland there are, 
practically speaking, no offices in the gift of the 
people. From the judgeships down to a place in 
the lowest rank of the police, everything is in the 
gift of the British government. Nor is this all. 
The Irish patriot, up to the last year, always ran 
the risk of collision with the authorities, and, in 
consequence, faced the chances of imprisonment. 
Mr. Parnell has been in prison ; Mr. Dillon has been 
twice in prison ; Mr. O'Kelly has been in prison ; 
Mr. Sexton has been in prison ; Mr. William 
O'Brien has been in prison ; Mr. Healy has been 



70 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

in prison; Mr. Timothy Harrington has been 
three times in prison ; Mr. Edward Harrington 
has been in prison ; Dr. O'Doherty was sent to 
penal servitude in '48 ; Mr. j. F. X. O'Brien was 
sent to penal servitude in 1867, having first been 
sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered. 
Out of the eighty-six Irish members of the present 
Irish party no less than twenty-five have been, 
on one excuse or other, and for longer or shorter 
terms, imprisoned by the British authorities. The 
choice, then, of the Irish politician lay between 
wealth, dignity, honors, ease, which were offered 
for traitorous service by the British government, 
and the poverty and hardship and lowliness, with 
a fair prospect of the workhouse and the gaol, 
which were the only rewards of the faithful servant 
of the Irish people. Isaac Butt himself was a 
signal and terrible example of what Irish patriot- 
ism entails. We have already described how 
hard he had to work in his closing days to meet 
the strain of professional and political duties. 
When he was wrestling with the growing disease 
that ultimately killed him, he was beset by duns 
and bailiffs, and his mind was overshadowed with 
the dread thought that he had left his children 
unprovided for. And to-day, in poverty — perhaps 
in misery — they are paying the penalty of having 
been begotten by a great and a true Irishman. 
Any man of political experience or reading will 
know how easy it is for a government to rule a 




J. WAITE, 
Treasurer Victoria Branch, Irish National League 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 73 

country if it have the gift of wealth to bestow, or 
the curse of poverty to entail. In our own days 
we have seen France ruled for twenty years by 
an autocrat through bayonets and offices ; and the 
offices were just as important an element in the 
governing as the bayonets. The fears of the 
timid, the hopes of the corrupt, are the founda- 
tions of unjust government in all ages. If Amer- 
icans be sometimes impatient at the duration of 
British domination and the helplessness of Irish 
efforts to overthrow it, they must always take into 
account the vast influence which an extremely 
wealthy country has been able to exercise over 
an extremely poor country by the gift of richly- 
dowered office. 

As soon as Biggar found that the new race of 
so-called Nationalists were of exactly the same 
brood as those who had gone before he made up 
his mind that these men would do nothing for 
Ireland, and he took his own course. Biggar' s 
mind is essentially combative. He is utterly with- 
out the Christianity of spirit that suggests the 
acceptance of a blow on one cheek after being 
struck on the other, and he was brooding over 
some means by which he could give these insolent 
Englishmen blow for bbow. But the member for 
Cavan has not a mind of much initiative, and he 
was helpless until he had the assistance of Mr. 
Parnell. 

A few nights before Parnell took his seat the 



74 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

House of Commons was engaged in the not un- 
familiar task of debating- a. Coercion Bill for Ire- 
land. A Coercion Bill in these days was not 
thought much about ; it was not felt as much of a 
hardship on the English side nor as much of an 
outrage on the Irish. Such was the poor spirit 
of the Irish representatives of these days that Sir 
Michael Hicks-Beach, the Conservative Chief 
Secretary, who was passing the bill through the 
House ol Commons, used frequently to be com- 
plimented by so-called Irish National Represent- 
atives for his courtesy; the- least little concession 
was hailed as an example of whole-souled gen- 
erosity ; and if an Irish member ventured to put 
the government to any inconvenience, by asking 
for the postponement of the discussion or by 
"obstructing" in any way the progress of busi- 
ness, he was at once pounced upon by his col- 
leagues and charged with ungenerous and irra- 
tional obstinacy. There was among the party at 
the time a shrewd and witty Corkman named 
Joseph Ronayne. Ronayne had been one of the 
party that in 1848 wanted to fight against the 
intolerable wrongs of Ireland. Time had brought 
the philosophic mind so far that Ronayne saw 
some hope in constitutional agitation ; but he was 
quite as fierce and quite as masculine a Nationalist 
as ever. He had a sharp and humorous tongue. 
The compliments that were poured on the Eng- 
lish Chief Secretary at the moment when he was 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 75 

depriving- Irishmen of the fundamental rights 
of citizens roused his gorge, and he compared 
them to the shake-hands which the convict gives 
to the hangman immediately before his execu- 
tion. 

Biggar was not the man to pay such compli- 
ments, to consult the ease of ministers, or to have 
regard to what used to be called the tone of the 
House. He resented frankly and irreconcilably 
the coercion of his country; he hated the man 
who proposed it; he didn't care a farthing what 
the House of Commons liked or disliked ; his 
policy was to fight the bill clause by clause, line 
by line, in season and out of season, with the con- 
venience of the House and against the conven- 
ience of the House ; and with absolute disregard 
of protest or plaint, of compliment or threat. 

It was on the night of April 22, 1875, that he 
first got the opportunity of putting this policy into 
effect. Mr. Butt asked Mr. Biggar to speak 
against time on a Coercion Bill. Mr. Butt had 
probably little idea at that moment of what he 
was doing. It was on this eventful night that one 
of the most singular and most potent political 
births of our time saw the light. On that night 
Parliamentary obstruction was born. 

Mr. Bi^'o-ar rose at five in the evening. One 

of the writers of this work happened to be in the 

Speaker's gallery of the House of Commons on 

this evening and remembers the speech very well 
5 



76 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The subject was Irish coercion, but Mr. Biggar 
seemed to be giving his opinion on every subject 
under heaven. For instance he happened to 
stumble across something of a religious character, 
and thereupon he gave the House the benefit of 
his views on the great question of Ritual which 
divides the two schools of religious thought in the 
Established Church of England. It is probable 
that Mr. Big-o- a r could not tell the difference be- 
tween a Hig;h and a Low Churchman ; and that 
if he could know the difference, he would not re- 
gard it as of the least importance. But he man- 
aged to dissertate on the subject for several sen- 
tences, and so filled up a portion of the time. 
At last his voice began to fail, and a friend who 
was watching the game resolved to come to his 
assistance. According*- to the rules of the House 
of Commons forty members is the quorum at a 
debate. The forty members need not be in the 
House itself. They may be dining or wining, en- 
joying a cigar in one of the smoke-rooms or en- 
gaged in study in a room in the library; but when 
a count is moved they all hurry in ; the Speaker 
counts ; if there be forty members present, the 
debate croes on, and the greater number of mem- 
bers scuttle back to the half-eaten chop or the 
half-smoked cigar ; while if there be not forty, the 
House stands adjourned. A count takes about 
five minutes, three minutes being; allowed to the 
members to assemble from the different places of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 77 

retreat. These five minutes Mr. Biggar utilized 
in recovering- breath. But again his voice began 
to fail, and the Speaker thought he had him in a 
trap. He declared that the member for Cavan 
was out of order ; his remarks were inaudible and 
no longer reached the chair. But Mr. Biggar was 
equal to the occasion. He moved up closer to 
the chair, and as the Speaker had not heard his 
previous observations obligingly offered to repeat 
them all over again. 

It was five minutes to 9 o'clock when Mr. 
Biggar resumed his seat ; he had spoken nearly 
four hours. This was the beginning of the new 
era. Hence Mr. Biggar is known by the proud 
title of the " Father of Obstruction." It was a 
few nights after this that Charles Stewart Par- 
nell took his seat for the first time as a member 
of the House of Commons. It was characteristic 
of his whole future that he spoke the very first 
night of his entrance into the House, and that 
his first speech was a vigorous protest against a 
Coercion Act for Ireland ; for the discussion of the 
question was still proceeding on which Mr. Biggar 
had made his historic speech, and his dogged 
courage had found the necessary supplement in 
the bold, daring, and inventive brain of the young 
member for County Meath. The hour had come ; 
and the man. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ERA OF OBSTRUCTION. 

BEFORE the policy of Parliamentary ob- 
struction is properly understood the reader 
must have some acquaintance with the rules and 
manners of the British House of Commons. 

The House of Commons meets for a period 
generally beginning the first week of February, 
and ending in the second week of August each 
year. It meets for five out of the seven days of 
the week for the transaction of business. On 
every one of those days except Wednesday the 
hour for assembling is 10 minutes to 4 o'clock. 
The sitting has no definite time of closing, and 
cases have been known where it has been ex- 
tended to forty-one hours, or almost two days, 
continuously. The House cannot adjourn unless 
on a motion carried by the members present. So 
rigid is this rule that a story is told how, on one 
occasion, the Speaker was left alone in his chair; 
the official whose duty it was to move the ad- 
journment having forgotten to attend to do so, 
and that official had to be sent for, in order that 
the necessary formality might be complied with. 
78 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 79 

On Wednesdays the House meets at 1 2 and 
closes at 6 o'clock. 

The business of the House is divided into two 
categories, viz. : First, what is called government 
business ; and, secondly, the business of "private" 
members. Mondays and Thursdays throughout 
the session are what are called "Government 
Nights," and on these occasions the business of 
the executive administration has precedence over 
all others. Tuesdays and Fridays are private 
members' nights, and on these occasions the 
business of the private members has priority over 
that of the government. On the nights devoted 
to the private members the business usually con- 
sists of resolutions upon some of the questions of 
the day which are not yet actually ripe for legis- 
lation. A member makes, say, a motion calling 
for the abolition of capital punishment; or for a 
change in the licensing laws ; or for the cessation 
of the traffic in opium ; or for the abolition of the 
House of Lords ; or for the disestablishment of 
the church; or for some such kindred purpose. 

Members sometimes make an attempt to carry 
their proposals into law, and introduce bills for 
that object ; but, generally speaking, the efforts 
of members are confined to abstract motions. 
Tuesday night belongs entirely to private mem- 
bers — the government not even making an at- 
tempt to get any portion of the time for the 
transaction of its own work. On Friday nights, 



gQ GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

however, the government sometimes succeeds in 
getting- through a few of its proposals. "Supply," 
or "appropriation" as it is called in America, is 
put down for that night. It is a principle of the 
English Constitution that the statement of a 
grievance shall precede supply. On Friday 
nights, accordingly, before the government are 
able to get a penny of money from the House, 
they have to listen to anything that a private 
member has to say. Sometimes half a dozen 
motions on half a dozen different subjects are put 
upon the paper, and are discussed. A private 
member even has the right to stand up in his 
place, and talk about any subject without putting 
a notice upon the paper. It thus very often hap- 
pens that the discussion of a grievance proceeds 
till 1 2 or i o'clock at night ; and when the debate 
has been extended to this period the government 
give up the project of getting money ; and there- 
upon no supply is taken that night. 

There is another, rule which has a most im- 
portant effect upon the transaction of business in 
the House of Commons. This is " the half-past 
12 o'clock rule," under which no business that is 
opposed can be taken. The Cabinet proposes, 
for instance, a bill for the future government of 
Ireland. At once a member of the Tory party, or 
of the Liberals who are opposed to it, puts down 
an " amendment " moving that the bill in question 
be read that day six months, which is the official 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. gj 

way of moving the rejection of the measure. As 
long as this amendment appears upon the paper 
the bill cannot be taken after half-past 12 o'clock 
at night. An amendment of the kind is what is 
known in Parliamentary vocabulary as a " block- 
ing" motion. It often happens that a bill which 
is very much objected to seems to have a chance of 
coming on about half-past 11 or 1 2 o'clock. When 
this occurs a number of members opposed to it 
immediately begin to talk against time, with the 
result that half-past 1 2 o'clock is reached ; then 
the bill has to be postponed till another day. 

Wednesday, to a great extent, is a dies non in 
Parliament. It is entirely given up to private 
members, and the subjects discussed are usually 
something in the nature of a fad or crotchet or an 
" ism." A change in the ecclesiastical law and 
other pious matters used to form the leading sub- 
jects of discussion-, and this earned for Wednes- 
day the reputation of being the special day for 
religious bills. At a quarter to 6 on the Wednes- 
day the debate, if proceeding, has to cease upon 
any bill which is the subject of discussion. Ac- 
cordingly, whenever a division is not considered 
desirable on that day, a speaker will get up about 

5 o'clock or later, and talk on until a quarter to 
6. The debate has then to be interrupted, and 
thus a division is avoided. Between a quarter to 

6 and 6 business can be done to which no objection 
is made; and often that short space of time is occu 



82 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

pied most usefully by a member of the government 
or private member in getting- a bill through its 
final stage. But if any member get up and use 
the words, " I object," the bill cannot be advanced 
any stage, and is postponed till another day. 

The first thino- to be remembered about the 
House of Commons is, that it is a machine en- 
tirely incapable of transacting the amount of work 
put upon it. The affairs of India, colonial rela- 
tions, international relations, the domestic affairs 
of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales — all 
these subjects have to be dealt with in one single 
Parliament. Frequently there are questions 
which involve such pith and moment as a threat- 
ened war between England and Russia, down to 
the less significant matter of a complaint about 
the defective paving of a street in London, or the 
neglect of a pauper in an Irish workhouse. 
There is no division between imperial and local 
government such as there is in the United States. 
In fact, the imperial Parliament is in the same 
position as the Congress at Washington would be 
if the State Legislatures throughout the whole 
country were abolished, and their work trans- 
ferred to the central assembly in the national 
capitol. The result of the arrangement of the 
imperial legislature is, that the main work of 
government is to attempt a victory in an ever- 
failing race with time. The history of every 
administration and, indeed, of every session of 
Parliament is the same. 




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THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. gg 

The basis of the policy of Mr. Parnell and Mr. 
Biggar was, that the Irish party should take ad- 
vantage of the way in which the rules of the House 
of Commons thus left the Enohsh ministries at 
the mercy of any resolute body of men. They 
pointed out to Mr. Butt that his annual debates 
were not advancing the Irish cause by one step, 
and that he must adopt entirely different methods 
if he hoped to succeed in his mission. Mr. Butt, 
however, was a man of amiability that reached to 
weakness. He knew that a policy of this kind 
could not be carried out without coming into 
fierce collision with the House of Commons, even 
without evoking a storm of interruption and of 
passion there, too, and an equally violent storm 
of passion outside. Kindly himself, he trusted to 
conciliation, and he had not the nerve to face the 
frowns and the hootings of men with whom he 
was in daily intercourse. For a long time Mr. 
Parnell and Mr. Biggar pressed their views upon 
the Irish leader over and over aeain, but with no 
satisfactory result ; and they finally came to the 
conclusion that it was perfectly impossible to hope 
for anything from Mr. Butt's initiative, and that 
they must take the work in hand themselves. 

It was acting upon these ideas that Mr. Parnell 
and Mr. Biggar started the movement known as 
the " Policy of Obstruction." They began by 
blocking every bill brought in by the government. 
This single step alone created a revolutionary 



#6 * GLADSTONE— PA RN ELL. 

change in the situation. Up to this time the gov- 
ernment had been able to get through some of 
their bills at whatever hour of the sitting- they 
came on — whether i or 2 or 3 or 4 o'clock in the 
morning. Now, however, their operations could 
not reach beyond half-past 12 o'clock. This is 
how the new and the old system worked. Sup- 
pose half a dozen government bills put clown 
on Monday or Thursday night; under the old 
system four or five of these bills would have a fair 
chance of being- considered on the same night. 
Under the new system it rarely happened that 
more than one of the bills was even discussed. 
Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar were there to speak 
at length, sometimes for an hour, other times for 
two hours, and frequently talking even nonsense. 
The result was, that a debate, which began at 5 
o'clock and was expected to finish at 8 o'clock, 
would be prolonged by these indefatigable talkers 
until 1 1 or 1 2 o'clock, and then some one of their 
friends would start up at midnight, and, by 
speaking till half-past 1 2 o'clock, prevent the gov- 
ernment from bringing on bill No. 2. 

In the House of Commons talk begets talk, and 
the speeches of the Irish members always resulted 
in eliciting speeches from the English members. 
Sometimes the speeches of their opponents took 
the form of violent attack and personal vitupera- 
tion, but Mr. Parnell and Mr. Bigfgar did not care 
a pin. In fact they were only too delighted, for 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. gy 

those attacks not only wasted time in themselves, 
but produced that feverish temper in the House 
during which abundant speech became inlectious. 
Whenever, too, there were little interstices of 
time, which in the easy-going good old days the 
government were able to fill up with little bills, 
there was either Mr. Parnell or Mr. Biggar ready 
to stand up and fill in the chasm, and so prevent 
the bills from coming on. "Supply" was their 
happy hunting-ground. On every item which 
gave the least promise of fruitful discussion they 
raised a debate. This was especially the case 
with Irish supply. On the votes for the constab- 
ulary, or for the state prosecutions, or for money 
to the Chief Secretary, they initiated discussions 
that dragged into the light every dark place in 
the English administration of Irish affairs. That 
put the government upon their defence, and 
sometimes kept the subject of Ireland before the 
House and the country for weeks in succession. 
The vote for the police alone has been known to 
occupy a week in discussion ; and the entire Irish 
votes have rarely taken less than three or four 
weeks in stormy times. 

Nothing will bring more clearly before the mind 
of the reader the difference between the old and 
the new time than a single incident that occurred 
with regard to these Irish estimates. One night 
Mr. Butt and his followers were dining In the 
House of Commons. They had intended to raise 



88 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

some kind of a debate upon the government of 
Ireland upon the Irish estimates. In the middle 
of the dinner somebody came, breathless and dis- 
mayed, to announce that the Irish estimates had 
all passed through in the course of a few minutes 
without a word of comment or a whisper of disap- 
proval. It was fortunate for Mr. Parnell and Mr. 
Biggar that at this time also the government, 
which at the moment belonged to the Conserva- 
tive party, resolved to bring in a series of measures 
which were of much length and vast perplexity. 
Some of these measures, besides, raised questions 
upon which Mr. Parnell knew some feeling would 
be raised in Enoland. He had known of the ex- 
istence for a long time of a party violently opposed 
to flogging in the army — an odious institution, 
which survived in England alone, of all civilized 
countries in the world. Mr. Parnell readily con- 
cluded from this that if he raised a debate upon 
flogging in the army he would be followed by a 
certain number of Englishmen ; that they would 
talk and divide along with him, and that in this 
way the progress of any bill in which flogging in 
the army was mentioned might be indefinitely 
delayed. 

Another subject on which he knew there was a 
great deal of feeling was the treatment of pris- 
oners. English feeling generally was confined 
to dissatisfaction at the manner in which untried 
prisoners were treated under the prison rules ; 



THE GREAT IRTSH STRUGGLE. §9 

but the Irish Nationalists had a further and even 
more serious grievance : that was, the treatment 
of political prisoners. Almost alone among - the 
civilized nations of the earth England had up to 
this time confounded the political and the ordinary 
prisoners. Men of high character, whose only 
offence was to feel for the deep distress and the 
wrongs and miseries of their country and too 
eag-erly desire to redress them — men of educa- 
tion, good social position, and refined minds — 
were compelled by the British government to 
herd with the murderer and the burglar and the 
lowest and vilest scum of English society. Ac- 
cordingly Mr. Parnell was able to organize con- 
siderable support both amongst the English and 
Irish members in favor of attacks upon the prison 
discipline of the country. Finally during the 
Conservative regime the annexation of the Trans- 
vaal was accomplished. It is needless now to 
arofue the ricrht or the wrongf of that act. The 
iron hand of time has crushed its advocates. 
But when the annexation first took place public 
opinion in England was not ripe, and information 
did not exist. The only persons who were pre- 
pared to give the annexation any effective oppo- 
sition were a small group of Radicals, chief 
among whom was Mr. Leonard Courtney, now 
Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons. 
The forcible conquest of any people against their 
will was naturally repugnant to Irish National- 



90 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ists, and thus they were drawn to the side of the 
Boers from the very first. A junction of their 
forces with their English Radical allies made it 
possible to embitter and prolong the fight. 

These preliminary observations will enable the 
reader to understand the 1-ine of tactics now 
adopted by the Irish obstructives. Every year 
the House of Commons has to pass what is 
called the " Mutiny Act." This act establishes 
the discipline of the British army ; and under the 
British Constitution the army cannot exist with- 
out the annual passage of this act. The act was 
originally passed for the purpose of maintaining 
the control of Parliament over the standing army. 
If this act should cease to exist the soldier would 
again become a private citizen, subject only to the 
common law, and could no longer be punished 
for disobeying his officers or even quitting the 
colors. The Mutiny Act in the present form con- 
sists of about 193 clauses, and in its old shape it 
was about the same length. But up to the advent 
of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Bia-aar it was regarded 
as simply a piece of formality that was hurried 
through in inaudible whispers from the Speaker 
and imaginary ayes and noes of the members of 
the House. In fact, it probably never at any 
period occupied more than ten minutes of the 
many months during which Parliament sits. But 
Mr. Parnell, casting his eyes through its innumer- 
able clauses, discovered the section maintaining 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 91 

flogging in the army. He at once saw the im- 
portance of the point ; raised the question again 
and again ; was attacked furiously by the Conser- 
vative Ministers, and for a long time was left alone 
by the members of the English parties, and even 
by the members of the Irish party too. The 
Minister for War at this period was a man now 
known as Lord Cran brook, but then Mr. Gathorne 
Hardy. Lord Cranbrook is a man of vacuous 
mind and boisterous temper. To watch him well 
there night after night — compelled to argue and 
reargue with tortured reiteration in reply to Mr. 
Parnell and Mr. Biggar — was, to use a colloquial 
expression, like the sight of a hen on a hot grid- 
iron. He would try this form, then that form in 
treating this obstinate and terrible Irish group. 
He was civil, and they replied with equal civil-ity, 
but at the same time with equally lengthy speeches. 
He sulked in silence, and then they moved mo- 
tions for adjournment of the debate or of the 
House that compelled him to answer. He was 
violently angry, and then he exposed himself to 
merciless torture. Night after night, week after 
week, month after month, the Mutiny Bill dragged 
its slow length along, not passing itself and not 
permitting any other measure to pass. 

The same thing took place with regard to other 
measures. The introduction of a Prison's Bill 
removing the control of prisoners from local 
authority to the Home Office, or, as it would be 



92 GLADSTONE— PAftNELL. 

called in America, to the i p irtment of the In- 
terior, afforded an opportunity for raising the 
question of prison discipline. Again night after 
night, week after week, and month after month 
passed, and still the Prisons Bill had not got 
through its innumerable clauses. And, finally, 
there was the Transvaal Bill, with its multi- 
farious clauses also ; and in its case likewise night 
after night, week alter week, and month after 
month almost passed, and still the bill had not 
become a law. 

It was the policy of himself and Mr. Biggar 
(as he told one of the writers of this work when 
they were travelling over to Ireland together to 
organize the great election campaign of 1885) 
always to avoid stand-up fights with the Govern- 
ment. The work of delaying legislation and 
wasting time was clone more effectively in quiet- 
ness and without any of these great struggles. 
This remark of Mr. Parnell's is quite characteris- 
tic of the man's whole nature and policy. The 
showy fights were not to his taste half as much 
as the quiet and unseen work ; for the quiet and 
unseen work produced practical results, whereas 
the showy fights sometimes were not so effective. 
In one respect this criticism upon his own policy 
was not altogether correct. These showy fights 
had the effect of drawing the attention of all man- 
kind to the Irish question, and had a second, and 
even equally important effect — they "enthused" 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 93 

the Irish race at home and abroad. When 
Mr. Parnell came to America in 1880, Wendell 
Phillips best pithily described the effect of Mr. 
Parnell's action, when he said he had come to see 
the man who had made John Bull listen. And 
the second effect is best shown by the extraordi- 
nary union of the Irish nation now in his support. 
In the midst of the struggle between the active 
section, as the Obstructives were called, of the 
Irish party, and the loggards, or trimmers, or 
traitors, who formed the bulk of that party, Mr. 
Butt died. Mr. Parnell was still at this time a 
young man and had only made a short record. 
The country was not yet quite certain of his 
power to take the position of leader. In addition 
to all this the then Home Rule Party consisted 
mostly of men who disliked him personally and 
loathed his policy. Under these circumstances it 
was vain to think of his being' appointed the 
leader; and Mr. William Shaw was elected as a 
stop-gap leader. The reasons for this election 
were, that Mr. Shaw was a Protestant, supposed 
to be very rich, and that he had a moderate mind 
and an easy and genial temperament. Under the 
rules of the Irish party the leader is elected for 
only one year, and the time was bound soon to 
come when Mr. Shaw would have once more to 
submit his claims for the position of chief. The 
selection was perhaps the best that could have 
n made at the time. Mr! Shaw was not with- 
6 



94 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

out many admirable qualities. He, however, was 
too cautious and timid, and had not imagination 
or mind large enough for the sublime and gigantic 
evils that had now to be grappled with once and 
for all. The year 1879 marked a crisis in the 
history of Ireland. 

Owing to circumstances which will be presently 
detailed the potato crop has occupied in Irish life 
a position of extraordinary importance. With- 
out any exaggeration the potato crop may be 
described as the thin partition which used to di- 
vide large masses of the Irish people from whole- 
sale starvation. The years 1877-78 had both 
been years in which the crops had largely failed 
to come up to the expectations of the people. 
The following table will prove this fact conclu- 
sively : 

Value of Potato Crop. 

1876 , #60,321,910 

1877 26,355,110 

1878 .' 3S.S97.S60 

It will therefore be seen that by 1879 there 
had been two bad seasons; and three bad seasons 
in Ireland as it then was were sufficient to make 
ail the difference between the chance of weather- 
ing the storm and going down in awful ship- 
wreck. But the year 1879 disappointed all the 
expectations that had been formed of it. The 
potato crop, instead of rising, went down to a 
lower point than it had reached even in the dis- 
astrous year of 1877. The figures are: 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 95 

Value of Potato Crop. 
1879 ... $15,705,440 

In other words two-thirds of the potato crop 
had not come to maturity, and in some parts of 
the country it had entirely disappeared. Thus 
Ireland stood face to face with famine. The time 
had come now for making a choice between 
either of two courses, each of which presented 
enormous difficulties and terrible dangers. 
Either the country had to remain quiet and sub- 
missive to the decree of British law and of Irish 
landlords, when the result would probably be a 
considerable amount of starvation, an enormous 
number of evictions, and an immense amount of 
emigration, as well as the break-down of all 
spirits and of all hopes in the people. The other 
course was that of passive resistance to the law 
of eviction, and of strong- agitation which would 
make the landlords pause in their tyranny, and 
compel the British Parliament to bestow reform. 
The latter course could not be entered upon 
without the risk of violent collision with the law 
and the chances of penal servitude and perhaps 
death on the gallows ; and above all, without the 
sickening dread when the hour of trial came that 
the people might prove unequal to the opportun- 
ity, and allow themselves to be again driven back 
by the dark night of hunger and of despair. If 
Mr. Butt had remained at the head of affairs it 
is more than probable that the first of these two 



90 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

courses would have been adopted. It was the 
only course that recommended itself to timid and 
constitutional lawyers like him, and to all the 
other large sections of society in Ireland, that 
always wish to avoid open collision with the 
great powers of the British government. But 
Mr. Parnell is a very different type of man to 
Mr. Butt. His iron nerve and his daring mind 
induced him to believe that the bold course was 
the true course, that eviction should be grappled 
with, that the landlords and the law should be 
encountered, and that in this way the threatened 
famine of 1879, in place of being a night of 
darkness and despair, might make a morning of 
hope and resurrection to the Irish people. 

His choice of weapons was largely influenced 
by a very remarkable man who at about this time 
began to have considerable influence over the 
course of Irish affairs. This was Michael Davitt. 
The life of Michael Davitt is in many respects like 
that of hundreds of thousands of Irishmen. Evic- 
tion, Exile, Poverty — these are its main features. 

Michael Davitt was born at Straid, in the 
County Mayo, in the year 1846. That year, as 
will be seen afterwards, was one of Ireland's 
darkest hours. Famine was in the country; 
thousands were dying in every hospital, work- 
house, and jail, and the roads were literally thick 
with the corpses of the unburied. The landlords 
were aggravating this terrible state of things by 




MICHAEL DAVITT. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 99 

their merciless eviction of all their helpless ten- 
antry whose means of living and power of paying 
their rent had been entirely destroyed by this 
economic cyclone. The father of Davitt was one 
of these victims. Davitt's earliest recollection is 
of an eviction under circumstances of cruelty and 
heartlessness. He was but four years of age 
when his father was -turned out of his house and 
farm. It was the curious irony of fate that he 
afterwards held a Land League meeting at Straide, 
and that the platform from which he spoke stood 
on the very spot where he had first seen light. 
His family emigrated to Lancashire, where to-day 
there are thousands of other Irish' families who 
sought refuge in English homes from their own 
country. The fate of the Irish in England has 
been one of the many tragedies in the sorrowful 
history of the Irish race. Coming mostly frpm 
the country and from rural pursuits, the Irish 
exiles were thrown into the midst of large manu- 
facturing industries. For such industries of course 
they had had no training whatever. The result 
was that the only work they could obtain was the 
work which was hardest and worst paid. To- 
day, if you pass through a Lancashire, Northum- 
brian, or Scotch district you will find that the 
stokers in the gas-works, the laborers in the blast 
furnace and chemical works are nearly all men of 
Irish birth and descent — people or the sons of 
people who were driven from Ireland by hunger 



100 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and by eviction. In his early years Davitt led 
the same life as that of the other Irishmen around 
him. As soon as he was able to work he had to 
be sent to the mill in order to eke out the scanty 
subsistence of his family. While employed in 
the mill his arm was caught in the machinery and 
wrenched off. This misfortune, terrible as it was, 
perhaps influenced his life for the future. He 
was taken away from the mill, and was able in 
this way to devote time to the improvement of 
his mind. He was living- at this time at Has- 
lingden, a town in the Lancashire constituency, 
which is represented at present by the Marquis 
of Harrington. He was employed there for some 
years in a stationer's shop and afterwards as a 
letter-carrier. In Haslingden there is a large 
Irish population, and the young Irish boy grew up 
amid Irish surroundings and Irish influences. 
However, it was not until one night he attended 
a meeting addressed by an Irish orator that he 
really began to have strong political opinions. 
This orator told him the history of his country, 
of her wrongs, of her plans, of her hopes. The 
whole soul of the young man was fired; his im- 
pressions were crystallized into convictions, and 
from that time forward he was an ardent Irish 
Nationalist. It is a singular circumstance that 
the man who gave to Davitt this new birth 
of conviction afterwards proved recreant to the 
cause; for the orator who first made Davitt 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE iqi 

an Irish Nationalist was Mr. John O'Connor 
Power. 

In those days there was no place in politics 
for an honest Irish Nationalist save in the ranks 
of the revolutionary party. That party found 
some of its bravest and fiercest recruits amon«- 
the Irish in England, and Davitt was one of them. 
The English Branch of the Fenian organization 
contemplated some of the most desperate enter- 
prises of the movement. Among many other 
plots they resolved to make an attack on Chester 
Castle, where there used to be a large supply of 
arms. Davitt, although very young at the time, 
was one of those who were present at the tryst- 
ing-place. He escaped arrest at this time, and 
then he became prominent by his energy and 
talents, and after a while was one of the foremost 
organizers of the movement. He was mainly 
concerned in the purchase of arms and their 
transportation to Ireland to prepare men for the 
fight, which was then supposed to be ripening 
fast. One evening he was arrested at a London 
railway station and was brought before the courts 
on the charge of levying war against the Queen. 
The main evidence against him was that of 
Corydon, an infamous ruffian, who first joined and 
then sold the organization. From the onset 
Davitt knew there was no escape?. In his "Leaves 
of a Prison Diary," which contains an account of 
his life, he describes his feelings at this terrible 
hour : 



102 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

"I recollect," he writes, "having occupied the 
half-hour during which the jury was considering 
whether to believe the evidence of respectable 
witnesses or accept that of a creature who can be 
truly designated a salaried perjurer in my case, 
in reading the inscriptions which covered the 
walls of the cell — the waitinor-room of fate — in 
Newgate prison, to which I was conducted while 
my future was being decided in the jury-room 
overhead. Every available inch of the blackened 
mortar contained, in few words, the name of the 
writer, where he belonged to, the crime with 
which he was charged, the dread certainty of 
conviction, the palpitating hopes of acquittal, or 
the language of indifference or despair. What 
thoughts must have swept through the minds of 
the thousands who have passed through that cell 
during the necessarily brief stay within its walls! 
Loss of home, friends, reputation, honor, name — 
to those who had such to lose ; and the impend- 
ing- sentence of banishment from the world of 
pleasure or business for years — perhaps forever 
— with the doom of penal degradation, toil, and 
suffering in addition ! 

" Yet, despite all these feelings that crowd 
upon the soul in these short, fleeting, terrible 
moments of criminal life, the vanity — or what 
shall I term it? — of the individual prompts him 
to occupy most of them in giving a short record 
of himself, his crime or imputed offence, scratched 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. JQo 

upon these blackened walls, for other succeeding 
unfortunates to read! 

!( Most of these inscriptions were in slang, 
showing that the majority of those who had writ- 
ten them were of the criminal order, and guilty 
of some, if not of the particular, offence for which 
they were doomed to await the announcement 
of their punishment within that chamber of dread 
expectancy. Not a few, however, consisted of 
declarations of innocence, invocations of Divine 
interposition, appeals to justice, and confidence 
in the ' laws of my country ; ' while others denoted 
the absence of all thoughts except those of wife, 
children, or sweetheart. Some who were await- 
ing that most terrible of all sentences — death — 
could yet think of tracing the outlines of a scaffold 
amidst the mass of surrounding inscriptions, with 
a ' Farewell to Life ' scrawled underneath. Giv- 
ing way to the seeming inspiration of the place, 
and picturing jurors' faces round that dismal den 
— dark and frowning, into which the sun's rays 
never entered, lit only by a noisy jet of gas which 
seemed to sing the death-song of the liberty of 
all who entered the walls which it had blackened 
■ — I stood upon the form which extended round 
the place and wrote upon a yet uncovered por- 
tion of the low sloping roof: 'M. D. expects ten 
years for the crime of being an Irish Nationalist 
and the victim of an informer's perjury. — July, 
1870/ From the ghastly look of the place, the 



104 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

penalty I was about to undergo, and my own 
thoughts at the moment, I might have most ap- 
propriately added the well-known lines from the 
' Inferno,' which invite those who enter its portals 
of despair to abandon hope." 

The anticipations in this heart's cry proved cor- 
rect. Davitt was found guilty and was sentenced 
to fifteen years' penal servitude. Replying in the 
month of May last (1886) to Lord Randolph 
Churchill's incitements to civil war, Mr. Davitt 
gave a scathing reply, and at the same time a 
neat summary of his miseries in penal servitude. 

" The treason for which I was tried and con- 
victed in 1870 was more justifiable in reason and 
less culpable to law than the treason which this 
ex-cabinet minister commits in telling the people 
of Ulster that they will be entitled to appeal to 
the arbitrament of force if the imperial Parliament 
passes a certain law. In 1870, when I was tried 
in London, the Castle system of government still 
obtained in Ireland — a system of rule which, by 
the measure which the Prime Minister of England 
— -(loud cheers) — has introduced for the better 
government of Ireland, is now proved to be un- 
just and unconstitutional. Nevertheless, I was 
sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude for 
sending firearms to Ireland to be used against a 
system of government in that country which was 
not objectionable to the minority, but which was 
looked upon by the mass of the Irish people as a 




F. B. FREEH1LL, M. A., 

President Irish National League, New South Wales. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 107 

tyranny. (Applause.) Now, what will be the 
position of this precious ex-minister of the Crown 
in 1887 if he be true to his words in sending fire- 
arms to the North of Ireland? (Applause.) 
Lord Churchill will be in insurrection against his 
:>wn Queen and country. (Hear, hear.) He 
•vill not be in revolt against a despotic Castle 
system, but against the legally-constituted Irish 
Parliament, and, therefore, this treason which he 
•commits by anticipation will have no earthly 
justification or extenuation. (Cheers.) Well, I 
will give the noble lord some friendly advice to- 
night — (laughter) — based upon a good deal of 
prison experience. (Renewed laughter.) I will 
assume that in 1887, when Paddington's lordly 
representative wiH become a rebel against impe- 
rial authority, Mr. Gladstone will be Prime Minis- 
ter of England. (Cheers.) He was England's 
Prime Minister in 1870, when I left the Old 
Bailey to undergo penal servitude. If Lord 
Randolph Churchill receive the same sentence 
for a similar offence without any justification for 
committing it, I will tell him what he will have to 
undergo. (Hear, hear.) If he is treated in 
prison as I was under Mr. Gladstone's adminis- 
tration, he will be chained to a cart with murder- 
ers and pick-pockets for the first four years of 
imprisonment, and if he goes through that ordeal 
without quarrelling with his new chums — (laughter 
and loud applause) — it may be his good fortune, 



108 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

as it was mine, to be in six years' time piomoted 
to the position of turning a wringing machine in 
the Dartmoor convict laundry. (Loud laughter 
and applause.) Well, after seven years and eight 
months' imprisonment, I hope he will be released 
on ticket-of-leave, as I was, and then, perhaps, it 
may be my duty, rising from the opposite benches 
of the Irish Parliament — (cheers) — to do for him 
what he did for me in 1 88 1 , when he called upon 
the then Chief Secretary of Ireland to send me 
back to penal servitude to undergo fifteen months' 
additional imprisonment." (Cheers.) 

Several attempts were made to procure Davitt's 
release from prison, which attempts failed for 
years ; but at last, on the morning of December 
19, 1877, the governor of Dartmoor jail brought 
Davitt the information that he was a free man. 
The release, however, was not unconditional. He 
was let out on a ticket-of-leave. This at the 
time might well have appeared nothing more than 
a hollow formality. But it afterwards proved to 
be a grim* safeguard for Davitt's political orthodoxy 
in the future. After his release he took to lectur- 
ing. In the course of time his family had been 
further scattered, and having first left Ireland for 
England they had subsequently quitted England 
for America. They were settled in Manayunk, 
Pennsylvania. Davitt went over to America to 
see his mother and sister, and also probably with 
the view to his career thereafter. When he ar- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 109 

rived in America he had not more than a few 
acquaintances in the country. The chief of these 
was Mr. James O'Kelly, then connected with the 
New York press, now a member of the British 
House of Commons. 

At this time there had come an important crisis 
in the history of Irish-American organizations. 
A large number of the men who had been en- 
gaged in revolutionary effort had made up their 
mind that the liberation of Ireland could not for 
the moment be advanced by immediate resort to 
physical force. Several of the men of the 
keenest intelligence and of thoughtful and states- 
manlike minds had come to the conclusion that 
other devices should be employed. Of these men 
perhaps the most noteworthy was Mr. John 
Devoy. It required some courage to preach to 
men of the revolutionary party any doctrine save 
the attempt to liberate Ireland by force of arms. 
Constitutional agitators had been proved in so 
many cases liars and traitors that constitutional agi- 
tation was regarded by vast numbers as a delusion 
and a snare ; and any plan that had even the least 
approach to constitutional agitation in its character 
was condemned beforehand. But some of the 
leading spirits of the revolutionary party were 
men above the cant of faction or the emptiness of 
phrases. They saw that the Land question was, 
after all, the fundamental question with the vast 
mass of the Irish people ; that that was the ques- 



1 1 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tion which touched their hearts, their homes, and 
their daily lives, and that accordingly, if some 
movement were started in which the land would 
play a prominent part, the adhesion of the farmers 
to the National movement would be easily ob- 
tained. Revolutionists were accordingly advised 
to take up the agitation of the Land question as 
the best means by which they could reach the 
goal of National revival. This was known at one 
time as "the new departure." 

Mr. Davitt was brought into contact with the 
men of this new school ; his mind was captured 
by the idea ; and when he returned to Ireland it was 
with a determination to put this new plan of action 
into operation. For a year he met with but little 
success ; the revolutionaries would not accept his 
plan because it was too constitutional The con- 
stitutionalists rejected it as too revolutionary. 

The period of Davitt's arrival in Ireland was 
the period of dark distress from the failure of the 
crop which has been already described. Another 
event which lent force to Davitt's ideas was the 
action of the land-owners. They proceeded to 
deal with their tenantry in exactly the same way 
as they had done at all previous periods of dis- 
tress. That is to say, they took advantage of 
their tenants' distress to drive them out of their 
holdings. This will be seen more plainly by put- 
ting side by side the increase of the distress and 
the number of evictions: 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE H3 

No. of Evictions 
Year. Value of Potato Crop. by Families. 

1876 $60,321,910 1,269 

1877 26,355,110 1,323 

1878 35.897,5 DO 1.749 

1879 15,705,440 2,667 

From this short table it may be gathered that 
the number of evictions increased in exact pro- 
portions to the deepening of the distress. Davitt 
saw how this state of things could be used for 
the purpose of advancing his ideas. He after- 
wards thus describes his mode of action : 

" I saw the priests, the farmers, and the local 
leaders of the Nationalists. I inquired and found 
that the seasons of 1877 and 1878 had been poor, 
and that a famine was expected in 1879. All the 
farmers and cotters were in debt to the landlords 
and the shopkeepers. One day in Claremorris, 
County Mayo — it was in March, 1879 — I was in 
company with John W. Walsh, of Balla, who was 
a commercial traveller. He is now in Australia 
in the interests of the Land League. He knew 
the circumstances of every shopkeeper in the west 
of Ireland — their poverty and debt, and the pov- 
erty of the people. He gave me a good deal of 
valuable information. I met some farmers from 
Irishtown, a village outside of Claremorris, and 
talked to them about the crops and the rent. 
Everywhere I heard the same story, and I at last 
made a proposition that a meeting be called in 
Irishtown to give expression to the grievances of 
the tenant farmers, and to demand a reduction of 



114 GLADSTONE— PARNELE. 

the rent. We were also to urge the abolition 
of landlordism. I promised to have the speakers 
there, and they promised to get the audience. I 
wrote to Thomas Brennan, of Dublin, John Fer- 
guson, of Glasgow, and other Irishmen known for 
their adherence to Ireland's cause, and I drew up 
the resolutions. The meeting was held and was 
a great success, there being between ten thousand 
and twelve thousand men present. In the pro- 
cession there were fifteen hundred men on horse- 
back, marching as a troop of cavalry ; and this 
feature, inaugurated at Irishtown, has been con- 
tinued ever since at every meeting of the Land 
League. The meeting was not fully reported in 
the Dublin papers, but was, as far as the object 
went, a success ; for the landlords of the neigh- 
borhood reduced the rents 25 per cent." 

From this meeting at Irishtown grew the great 
Land League movement. However, Davitt had 
yet to gain the adhesion of the Parliamentary 
leader. The fierce obstructive fights in the House 
of Commons happened by a fortunate coincidence 
to be going on exactly at the same time as the 
threatened famine and the increasing evictions 
prepared the mind of Ireland for a new land 
movement. These struggles had roused the 
spirit and the hopes of the people, and they were 
above and beyond all pointing to the possibility 
of their finding a leader who had the necessary 
courage, determination, and skill to lead a new 




MR. JOSEPH CHAMBERLAIN. M. P. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 115 

land movement to victory. Mr. Davitt early 
appreciated the fact that if he were to make a 
successful land movement he should secure the 
leadership of Mr. Parnell for it, as he alone among 
the Parliamentarians of that day had the necessary 
magnetism and other qualities lor such an arduous 
and perilous enterprise. But he did not find in 
Mr. Parnell immediate assent to his proposals ; 
for Davitt's schemes, not merely in their means 
but in their ends, went far beyond any plans that 
had yet been formulated by any Irish organization 
or any Irish politician. The Land reformers in 
Ireland had always demanded as the goal and 
limit of its efforts what came to be known as the 
" Three F's ; " that is to say, Fixity of tenure, Free 
sale, and Fair rent. The demands for these con- 
cessions had been urged for more than forty 
years, and had formed the subject of innumerable 
bills in the House of Commons, of countless mis- 
sions, and of many successive agitations ; and in 
1879, when Davitt was preparing the new move- 
ment, the three " F's " seemed nevertheless to be 
as far off realization as ever. Davitt's startling 
proposal was that in place of urging this moderate 
demand, which appeared unattainable, they should 
advance to a far more drastic proposal for the 
settlement of the land question. This suggestion, 
curiously enough, had first been made by English 
statesmen. John Stuart Mill, the great English 
economist, Mr. Bright, the great English tribune, 



116 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

had both suggested that the real and final remedy 
for the land struggle of Ireland was the establish- 
ment, through the state, of that system of peasant 
proprietors which had brought wealth and inde- 
pendence out of poverty and servitude in France, 
Germany, and Austria. Davitt now proposed 
to drop the proposal for the three Fs, and to stop 
nothing short of the declaration that the occupy- 
ing tenantrv of Ireland should be transformed into 
proprietors of the soil. Mr. Parnell, although he 
is bold and audacious in enterprise, is a cool and 
cautious calculator of means towards ends. Up 
to this time he had never dreamt of making a 
step beyond the demand for the three F's ; and 
he long hesitated before he could accept the pro- 
posal of Davitt ; but at last he embraced Davitt's 
programme; he went to a meeting at Westport, 
and preached the doctrine of peasant proprietor, 
and so the most popular figure of Ireland had 
crossed the Rubicon : the land movement now 
must go on to great victory or disastrous shame. 
Thus it was that the great Land League move- 
ment took its start. It was a movement that 
grew rather than was made. The circumstances 
of the time made it necessary. All that was 
wanted was now supplied. There was a leader 
of the necessary boldness and adroitness to direct 
and to guide it ; and soon from one end of Ireland 
to another there were bodies of farmers ready to 
go in for the struggle. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. }] 7 

Matthew Harris is one of the most interesting 
and striking figures of the Irish movements of the 
last thirty years. During all this period he has 
devoted himself with self-sacrificing and unremit- 
ting zeal to the attainment of complete redress 
of his country's grievances. In this respect poli- 
tics are with him an absorbing passion, almost a 
religion. In the pursuit of this high and noble 
end he has risked death, lost liberty, ruined his 
business prospects. Eager, enthusiastic, vehe- 
ment, he has at the same time that grim tenacity 
of purpose by which forlorn hopes are changed 
into triumphant fruitions. He has fought the 
battle against landlordism in the dark as well as 
in the brightest hour with unshaken resolution. 
Reared in the country, from an early age he saw 
landlordism in its worst shape and aspect ; his 
childish recollections are of cruel and heartless 
evictions. Thus it is that in every movement for 
the liberation of the farmer or of Ireland during 
the last thirty years he has been a conspicuous 
figure, as hopeful, energetic, laborious in the hour 
of despair, apathy, and lassitude, as in times of 
universal vigor, exultation, and activity. 

Matthew Harris made war on landlordism, 
which in the county of Gal way had been particu- 
larly atrocious for many years before the Land 
League was thought of; and in this way his ac- 
tions became the germ of a new movement. 

And now we have come to a point in our nar- 



118 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

rative that makes it necessary to give a short his- 
torical retrospect. How comes it that the Land 
question in Ireland has grown to be a question 
of life and death to the Irish people ? Is the land 
system in Ireland the same as in America or in 
other countries ? And how is it that there has 
grown up between the landlord and the occupier 
of the Irish soil a feud so bitter, a hatred so deadly? 
These questions compel a short sketch of the land 
struggle. 

A short sketch, indeed ; and yet any sketch, 
however long, would, in point of fact, be all too 
brief to convey any adequate idea of the wretched 
history of Ireland's wrongs. For the struggle in 
Ireland, from the very outset, has been a land 
struggle. Every combination against the Saxon 
invader has been a land league ; almost every 
new creation in the Irish peerage has been simply 
the transfer of some land grabber into the galaxy 
of the Anglo-Hibernian aristocracy. It is a mis- 
erable story, sickening in its details ; but there is 
no alternative. Any view of the situation which 
leaves out of the account this loner catalogue of 
the crimes of the rich man against the poor man 
in Ireland must altogether fail of its purpose. 

The sketch is brief, not for lack of material to 
make it long ; but our purpose in this book is 
not to repeat in detail the old story of shame and 
crime and misery. Our narrative is not designed 
as a chronicle of Ireland's wrongs so much as a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. H9 

new gospel of hope, and a prophecy of future 
peace and prosperity for that unhappy country. 
The situation at present is, indeed, full of hope 
and promise; but the full end is not yet attained. 
The goal seems near at hand ; but the need for 
united action, wise counsels, persistence and pa- 
tience, was never greater than now. England 
has been forced to hear Ireland's complaints ; her 
best statesmen have been found not unwilling to 
concede the essential part of what Ireland claims ; 
and even the majority of those who oppose most 
strongly the plans of settlement which have been 
offered profess to object to the details of those 
plans rather than to the essential principles in- 
volved. There is, then, every reason for the 
friends of Ireland to be of good cheer. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE LAND WAR. 

THE history of Ireland for centuries — the his- 
tory of Ireland to-day — is largely the strug- 
gle for the possession of the land. Behind the 
Land question stands the larger and higher ques- 
tion of National rights ; but the land struggle has 
always been present to add fierceness to the de- 
sire for National liberty. 

The possession of the land forms in most coun- 
tries the ground and bottom subject of struggle ; 
but the fierceness of the fight is naturally pro- 
portioned to the prominence which agriculture 
holds in the economy of a state. In countries 
with huge manufacturing industries the struggle 
for the land has not the same intensity as in coun- 
tries where farming is the main if not the sole re- 
source of the people. Again, the keenness of 
land struggles is proportionate to the other dif- 
ferences in the combatants by which it may be 
accompanied. There are states where the strug- 
* gle between the owner and the occupier of the 
soil is a struggle between men of the same race 
and the same creed ; and naturally struggles in 
(120) 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 121 

such countries have not the terrible and passion- 
ate hatred of struggles in countries where the di- 
vergence of interest is accompanied by difference 
of faith and blood. And finally, the battle for the 
land is fiercest of all in a country where the power 
on the side of the owner is that of another and a 
foreign nation. In Ireland all the conditions that 
make the land-owner fierce and relentless coexist. 
The ownership of the soil was transferred from 
the Catholic and the Celt to a Protestant and a 
Saxon ; the occupier of the soil was robbed of his 
heritage in a land where the cultivation of the soil 
was the one and only means of making a liveli- 
hood, and all this was done through the agency 
of England and in the interests of Englishmen 
and English policy. 

The struggle between the native race of Ireland 
and the intrusive English landlord-class for the 
possession of the soil of that oppressed country 
may be said to date from 1169, when Richard 
Fitzstephen landed near Wexford with the advance 
party of Strongbow's famous bands. The first 
invaders were Norman and Welsh rather than 
English ; and the first enemies they met were 
Danes rather than Irish. Still from this time dates 
the attempt (long continued, but for centuries 
unsuccessful) to substitute feudal laws and the 
feudal land tenure for the semi-communal land 
systen? which was that of the native Irish popu- 
lation. From this seed sprang the baleful upas 



122 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tree of English oppression, which was destined to 
overshadow the whole country for ages. There 
is little doubt that the first cause of the difficulty 
between the English and natives was largely a 
misapprehension The Anglo-Normans were 
ignorant of the Irish land tenures, and of their 
system of septs and tribes ; and they seem never 
to have suspected that there was any people in 
the world which did not hold their land by a tenure 
like their own. Dermod MacMorrough is said 
to have given Strongbow his only child Eva in 
marriage, and with her to have granted certain 
lands in perpetuity. Now it is most certain, first, 
that the lands which Dermod is said to have 
granted were never his ; and next that if they had 
been his, he would have had no right, by Irish law, 
to convey them out of his sept. The Norman 
feudal laws, however, would have made Eva sole 
heiress of her father's power (a thing unknown in 
old Irish law), as well as the inheritress of all the 
lands in his kingdom. Quite in the same line 
of stupidity and ignorance has been the much 
more recent experience of the British in India, 
where, for more than a century, they kept confis- 
cating and granting lands to which they had no 
right. Until very recent years they seem to have 
had no conception or suspicion of the fact that 
they were violating all the immemorial land laws 
and traditional rights of an ancient and intelli- 
gent people, and making deep wounds which 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 123 

the East Indian races will never forget nor forgive. 
As early as 121 7 marks of strong mutual hatred 
between the Irish and Anglo-Irish begin to appear. 
All through the later feudal reigns there were fre- 
quent deeds of blood. The English looked upon 
the Irish as no better than wild beasts ; and the 
Irish returned their scorn with the bitterest hatred. 
The " great Talbot," immortalized by Shakes- 
peare, was in truth an able soldier, though feeble 
in council; yet towards the Irish people he acted 
with extreme barbarity. An old Irish chronicle 
says that he was " a son of curses for his venom, 
and a devil for his evil deeds ; and the learned 
say of him that there came not from the time of 
Herod [Pilate], by whom Christ was crucified, any 
one so wicked in evil deeds." 

It is not necessary to go back to the first in- 
vasion of Ireland by the English or even to some 
centuries later in order to find the origin of the 
present land system. For several centuries after 
the English had invaded Ireland the English 
kings had but a small extent of territory; and 
their authority was shadowy and shifting. More- 
over the English invaders in time mingled with 
the Celtic inhabitants ; adopted their customs, their 
dress, and their sentiments ; took their wives from 
among them ; and in time were so thoroughly 
transformed that they were described in the well- 
known phrase, Hiberniores Hihernis ipsis. But 
the English authorities looked on these proceed- 



124 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ings with evil eye ; passed laws inflicting heavy 
fines upon the English settlers who thus inter- 
mingled with the Irish race. Indeed they went 
even further; for one of the laws passed in the 
reign of Henry VI. made it felony on the part of 
an English merchant to sell his goods to an Irish- 
man. The relations between the English settled 
in the counties around Dublin — the region was 
known as The Pale — and the Irish throughout the 
rest of Ireland, throughout all those centuries, 
were those of perpetual and incessant war. The 
Irish were regarded as enemies whom it was 
lawful to rob and to slay and desirable to exter- 
minate. Then, as for many centuries afterwards, 
it was the policy of English statesmen and soldiers 
to exterminate the Irish race from the face of Ire- 
land and substitute therefor a purely English 
population. The Irish were foreigners in every 
sense of the word. The whole policy of this 
period is put with excellent terseness and lucidity 
by Sir John Davies. Sir John Davies was At- 
torney-General of the English authorities in the 
reign of James I., and he has left most interesting 
. and valuable accounts of his times. 

" In all the Parliament Rolls," he writes, " which 
are extant, from the fortieth year of Edward III., 
when the statutes of Kilkenny were enacted, till 
the reign of King Henry VIII., we find the de- 
generate and disobedient English called rebels ; 
but the Irish which were not in the King's peace 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 125 

are called enemies. Statute Kilkenny, c. i, 10 
and ii ; 2 Henry IV., c. 24; 10 Henry VI., c. 1, 
18 ; 18 Henry VI., c. 4, 5 ; Edward IV., c. 6 ; 10 
Henry VII., c. 17. All these statutes speak of 
English rebels and Irish enemies ; as if the Irish 
had never been in the condition of subjects, but 
always out of the protection of the law, and were 
indeed in worse case than aliens of any foreign 
realm that was in amity with the crown of Eng- 
land. For by divers heavy penal laws the English 
were forbidden to marry, to foster, to make gos- 
sips with the Irish, or to have any trade or com- 
merce in their markets or fairs ; nay, there was a 
law made no longer since than the twenty-eighth 
year of Henry VIII., that the English should not 
marry with any person of Irish blood, though he 
had gotten a charter of denization ; unless he 
had done both homage and fealty to the King in 
the Chancery, and were also bound by recogni- 
zance with sureties, to continue a loyal subject. 
Whereby it is manifest, that such as had the gov- 
ernment of Ireland under the crown of England 
did intend to make a perpetual separation and 
enmity between the English and the Irish, pre- 
tending, no doubt, that the English should in the 
end root out the Irish ; which the English not be- 
ing able to do, caused a perpetual war between the 
nations, which continued for four hundred and 
odd years, and would have lasted to the world's 
end, if in the end of Queen Elizabeth's reign the 



126 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Irish had not been broken and conquered by the 
sword, and since the beginning of his majesty's 
reign been protected and governed by the 
law." 

It will be remarked that in the extract just given 
Sir John Davies illustrates his statements with 
true lawyer-like accuracy by references to the 
leading cases which corroborate them. In the 
same series of historical tracts — as they are called 
— in which he lays the foregoing propositions 
down, he illustrates the ideas of the times still 
more clearly by quoting some well-known trials 
in which there was an Englishman of The Pale 
on one side and an Irishman on the other. In the 
one case the Irishman sues the Englishman for 
trespass ; and the plea of the Englishman is not 
a denial of the offence but that the Irishman is not 
an Englishman nor a member of five families 
whom the English King Henry II. exempted from 
the laws against the Irish ; and the plea being es- 
tablished the Irishman is non-suited. In the sec- 
ond case an Enolishman is charged with the mur- 
der of an Irishman ; and his plea is a confession 
of guilt as to the murder accompanied by the de- 
mand that, as the murdered man was an Irishman, 
the punishment should not be death but the pay- 
ment of a fine. On the other hand the Irishman 
that killed an Englishman was always hanged. 
Indeed there are several statutes that openly 
preached the assassination of Irishmen found 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 127 

within English territory as a duty and a service to 
the state. 

Thus in the reign of Edward IV. a statute was 
passed, intituled — " An Act that it shall be law- 
full to kill any that is found robbing by day or 
night, or going or coming to rob or steal, having 
no faithfull man of good name or fame in their 
company in English apparrel : " Whereby it was 
enacted — " That it shall be lawfull to all manner 
of men that find any theeves robbing by day or 
by night, or going or coming to rob or steal, in or 
out, going, or coming, having no faithfull man of 
good name in their company in English apparrel 
upon any of the liege people of the King, that it 
shall be lawfull to take and kill those, and to cut 
off their heads, without any impeachment of our 
Sovereign Lord and King, his heirs, officers, or 
ministers, or of any others." 

"Thus, in truth," justly comments Daniel 
O'Connell, " the only fact necessary to be ascer- 
tained, to entitle an Englishman to cut off the 
head of another man, was, that such other should 
be an Irishman. For if the Irishman was not rob- 
bing, or coming from robbing, who could say but 
that he might be going to rob ; ' in, or out,' as 
the statute has it. And the Englishman — the 
cutter-off of the head — was made sole judge of 
where the Irishman was going, and of what he in- 
tended to do. The followers of Mahomet, with 
regard to their treatment of their Grecian sub- 



]28 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

jects, were angels of mercy when compared with 
the English in Ireland. Care was also taken that 
no part of the effect of the law should be lost by 
the mistaken humanity of any individual English- 
man ; for an additional stimulant was given by the 
following section of the Act : 

" 'And that it shall be lawful by authority of the 
said Parliament to the said bringer of the said 
head, and his ayders to the same, for to destrain 
and levy by their own hands, of every man having 
one plow-land in the barony where the said thief 
was so taken, two-pence, and of every man hav- 
ing half a plow-land in the said barony, one- 
penny, and every other man having one house 
and goods to the value of fourty shillings, one- 
penny, and of every other cottier having house 
and smoak, one half-penny.' " 

There was one other provision of the English 
dealings with the Irish people which was as de- 
structive to prosperity as those cited were to 
the safety of Irish life. It has been the constant 
refrain of those who have demanded land reform 
for many generations that the Irish tenant gained 
nothing from industry ; that a premium was placed 
upon laziness, for, as the tenant made the land 
more fertile, the landlord came and pocketed the 
increase by raising the rent. At an early stage 
in Irish history the Irish tenant had to live under 
this destructive condition. Again let us go to the 
writings of an English official for our description 
of this grievance. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 129 

"The most wicked and mischievous custom of 
all was that of Coin and Livery, which consisted 
in taking of man's meat, horse meat, and money, 
of all the inhabitants of the country, at the will 
and pleasure of the soldier; who, as the phrase 
of the Scripture is, did eat up the people as it 
were bread ; for that he had no other entertain- 
ment. This extortion was originally Irish; for 
they used to lay bonaght* upon their people, and 
never gave their soldiers any other pay. But 
when the English had learned it they used it with 
more insolence, and made it more intolerable ; for 
this oppression was not temporary, nor limited 
either to place or time; but because there was 
everywhere a continual war, either offensive or 
defensive, and every lord of a county, and every 
marcher, made war and peace at his pleasure, it 
became universal and perpetual ; and indeed was 
the most heavy oppression that ever was used in 
any Christian or heathen kingdom.— And there- 
fore, vox opprcssorum, this crying sin did draw 
down as great, or greater plagues upon Ireland, 
than the oppression of the Israelites did draw 
upon the land of Egypt. For the plagues of 
Egypt, though they were grievous, were but of 
short continuance; but the plagues of Ireland 
lasted four hundred years together." 

The natural consequences followed; they may 

* « Bonaght" was the Irish term for billeting of soldiers, with a right 
to be maintained in food. 



I30 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

as well and cannot be better described than in 
the words of Davies : 

" This extortion of Coin and Livery produced 
two notorious effects : first, it made the land 
waste ; next, it made the people idle ; for when 
the husbandman had labored all the year, the 
soldier in one night consumed the fruits of all his 
labor, longiqiie perit labor irritus anni. — Had he 
reason then to manure the land for the next year? 
Or rather, might he not complain as the shepherd 
in Virgil : 

" ' Impius hrec tarn culta novalia miles habebit? 
Barbaras has segetes ? En quo discordia cives 
Perduxit miseros ? En queis consevimus agros ? ' 

"And hereupon of necessity came depopulation, 
banishment, and extirpation of the better sort of 
subjects ; and such as remained became idle and 
lookers-on, expecting the event of those miseries 
and evil times, so as their extreme extortion and 
oppression hath been the true cause of the idle- 
ness of this Irish nation, and that rather the 
vulvar sort have chosen to be beggars in foreign 
countries than to manure their fruitful land at 
home." 

It will probably occur to the reader that the 
horrible oppression thus inflicted on the Irish 
must have been largely the result of their own 
folly or ferocity. It will be answered that it was 
a case of constant and incessant war between two 
forces equally barbarous, relentless, and irrecon- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. \%\ 

citable, and that if the Irish were savagely treated 
and regarded as foes to be exterminated by the 
English of The Pale, it was because the English 
of The Pale were as savagely treated by the Irish 
and equally regarded as wild beasts to be extir- 
pated. But against this theory we call in again 
the evidence of the English monarch's Attorney- 
General : 

" But perhaps," writes Sir John Davies, antici- 
pating this objection, "the Irish in former times did 
wilfully refuse to be subject to the laws of Eng- 
land, and would not be partakers of the benefit 
thereof, though the Crown of England did desire 
it ; and therefore they were reputed aliens, out- 
laws, and enemies. Assuredly the contrary doth 
appear." 

And in page 101 he expressly declares, — 

"That for the space of two hundred years at 
least, after the first arrival of Henry II. in Ireland, 
the Irish would have gladly embraced the laws of 
England, and did earnestly desire the benefit and 
protection thereof; which, being denied them, did 
of necessity cause a continual bordering war be- 
tween the English and Irish." 

And finally he admirably sums up the whole 
case when he writes : 

"This, then, I note as a great defect in the civil 
policy of this kingdom ; in that for the space of 
three hundred and fifty years at least after the 
conquest first attempted, the English laws were 



|32 GLADSTONE— PARNEI/L 

not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit 
and protection thereof allowed unto them, though 
they earnestly desired and sought the same : for 
as long as they were out of the protection of the 
law, so as every Englishman might oppress, spoil 
and kill them without control, how was it possible 
they should be other than outlaws and enemies 
to the Crown of England ? If the king would 
not admit them to the condition of subjects, how 
could they learn to acknowledge and obey him as 
their sovereign ? When they might not con- 
verse or commerce with any civil man, nor enter 
into any town or city without peril of their lives, 
whither should they fly but into the woods and 
mountains, and there live in a wild and barbarous 
manner? " 

Before leaving this part of the subject there is 
one other point that deserves to be noticed. The 
continuance of the destructive estrangement al- 
ready described between the English authorities 
and the Irish population was not merely against 
the wishes of the Irish but possibly also against 
the wishes of English kings and of prudent Eng- 
lish ministers. It was the great Lords who really 
stood between the two peoples. Thus the reason 
why that wise monarch, King Edward III., did not 
extend the benefit of English protection and Eng- 
lish law to the Irish people was, that the great 
Lords of Ireland, the Wicklows, the Stanleys, and 
the Rodens of the day, certified to the king, — 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 133 

"That the Irish might not be naturalized, with- 
out being of damage or prejudice to them, the said 
Lords, or to the Crown." 

This point is put still more clearly in the history 
of Ireland written by a Protestant clergyman, 
named Leland : 

"The true cause which for a long time fatally 
opposed the gradual coalition of the Irish and 
English race, under one form of government, was, 
that the great English settlers found it more for 
their immediate interest, that a free course should 
be left to their oppressions ; that many of those 
whose lands they coveted should be considered 
as aliens ; that they should be furnished for their 
petty wars by arbitrary exactions ; and in their 
rapines and massacres be freed from the terrors 
of a rigidly impartial and severe tribunal." 

These extracts sufficiently indicate the rela- 
tions that existed between the English conquerors 
and the Irish inhabitants. It was not unnatural 
under such circumstances that the territories of 
the English kin^s did not increase ; at one time 
they had fallen as low as four counties out of the 
entire country. The wars of the Roses too so 
much occupied the attention of the English at 
home that the Irish were able to drive the English 
out of town after town, and finally out of county 
after county until the reign of Henry VIII. 

The reign of Henry VIII. was marked by 
several rebellions against the English authority. 



134 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

In the course of these rebellions many severe 
battles were fought ; Irish chiefs were conquerors 
and conquered ; if they conquered they were ac- 
cepted, if they were conquered they were brought 
• to London and after a short period in the Tower 
were hanged as traitors at Tyburn. In this way 
the seeds were sown of severe and bitter trouble 
in the reign of Elizabeth. By this time too the 
design of extending the Protestant religion in 
Ireland and crushing the Catholic had taken shape; 
and wars ensued which were embittered by re- 
ligious passion and by the still more destructive 
factor of greed for land. It is not our purpose to 
detail the history of these wars. They have im- 
portance for the present purpose only in so far 
as they bear upon the land struggle and explain 
the state of the land question as it exists to-day. 

Suffice it then to say that all the great families 
of Ireland, and in particular the great Anglo-Irish 
families, rose in succession against the Queen's 
power. Of all these chiefs the most important 
was Shane O'Neill. Shane O'Neill is one of the 
great men of human history. With his cunning he 
baffled the skilful councillors of Elizabeth; in bat- 
tle after battle he conquered the largest and bravest 
armies the British Queen could send against him, 
and finally, when he had become master of all 
Ulster, he ruled it with greater order than had ever 
been even approached before his time. In the end, 
after many changes of fortune, his forces were 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 135 

routed; he himself, Hying before the triumphant 
English army, was assassinated, and his kingdom 
was broken up and scattered. A short time 
previously rebellions under the Geraldines had 
been beaten in the southern parts of the country. 
With the defeat of the O'Neill the conquest of 
Ireland by Elizabeth was complete, and then Eliza- 
beth proceeded to carry out the second part of the 
English policy. This was to transfer the owner- 
ship, and, so far as possible, the occupation of the 
soil from the native Irish to English lords and 
English husbandmen. Thus began the first great 
era of confiscation and plantation. 

A preliminary to these steps was deemed 
necessary. There was a series of expeditions 
to the different parts of Ireland, which should 
prepare them still better for the new regime. 
These expeditions had purposes as fell and were 
carried out by means as execrable as any re- 
corded in history. The purpose was not simply 
to break the forces or quell the spirit of the native 
population : the object was to actually clear the 
island of Irish settlers by a war of extermination. 
Previously and simultaneously was there made 
another and a disastrous change in the Irish law. 

" Before the introduction of the feudal English 
system of tenure," writes T. M. Healy, "the 
lands of Ireland belonged to the clans of Ireland. 
The chief, subject to certain privileges appur- 
tenant to his chieftaincy, held only as trustee for 



136 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the tribe, and if by his misfeasance he became 
personally dispossessed, the rights of his people 
were in no wise affected. When, however, the 
councillors of Elizabeth determined to subjugate 
the entire island, and to substitute British for 
Brehon law throughout its whole extent, prince 
and people alike suffered when defeated. Victory 
for the English resulted in the dispossession and 
spoliation of the clansmen as well as of the chiefs 
who led them to the battle; English adventurers, 
by the Queen's patent, obtained lordship and 
dominion over the conquered territory ; and clan 
ownership gave place to private property in 
land." 

And now for the military expeditions which 
were to complete the work that had been begun 
by the conquest of O'Neill and the change in the 
land law. These expeditions, like other events 
already recorded, we can describe, fortunately, 
not in the hot language of modern Irish writers, 
but in the frigid and unadorned characters of 
the Englishmen who themselves enacted them 
and immediately after described them. 

Mr. Froude transcribes from his own report the 
following letter written in the year 1576, by 
Malby, the President of Connaught : 

"At Christmas," he wrote, "I marched into their 
territory [Shan Burke's], and finding courteous 
dealing with them had like to have cut my throat, 
I thought good to take another course, and so 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 



137 



with determination to consume them with fire and 
sword, sparing neither old nor young, I entered 
their mountains. I burnt all their corn and 
houses, and committed to the sword all that could 
be found, where were slain at that time above 
sixty of their best men, and among them the best 
leaders they had. This was Shan Burke's country. 
Then I burnt Ulick Burke's country. In like 
manner I assaulted a castle where the earrison 
surrendered. I put them to the misericordia of 
my soldiers. They were all slain. Thence I 
went on, sparing none which came in my way, 
which cruelty did so amaze their followers, that 
they could not tell where to bestow themselves. 
Shan Burke made means to me to pardon him, 
and forbear killing of his people. I would not 
hearken, but went on my way. The gentlemen 
of Clanrickard came to inc. I found it was but 
dallying to win time, so I left Ulick as little corn 
and as few houses standing as I left his brother, 
and what people was found had as little favor as 
the other had. It was all done in rain, and frost, 
and storm, journeys in such weather bringing 
them the sooner to submission. They are humble 
enough now, and will yield to any terms we like 
to offer them." 

There are descriptions of similar expeditions 
in Munster. They are also drawn by English, 
hands. It is a report by Sir George Carew, the 
English General. 



138 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

"The President having received certaine infor- 
mation that the Mounster fugitives were har- 
boured in those parts, having before burned all 
the houses and corne, and taken great preyes in 
Owny Onubrian and Kiiquig, a strong and fast 
countrey, not farre from Limerick, diverted his 
forces into East Clanwilliam and Muskeryquirke, 
where Pierce Lacy had lately beene succoured ; 
and harassing the country, killed all mankind 
that were found therein, for a terrour to those as 
should ofive releefe to runagate traitors. Thence 
wee came into Arleaghe woods, where wee did the 
like, not leaving behind us man or beast, corne 
or cattle, except such as had been conveyed into 
castles." — Pacata Hibcrnia, 659. 

" No spectacle," writes Morrison, an English 
Protestant historian of these wretched times, 
"was more frequent in the ditches of the towns, 
and especially in wasted countries, than to see 
multitudes of these poor people, the Irish, dead, 
with their mouths all colored green by eating 
nettles, docks, and all things they could rend 
above ground. " 

And now that the native race had thus been 
destroyed, there comes the result for which the 
destruction had taken place. Confiscation follows 
extirpation. 

"Proclamation," says Godkin, in his "Land 
War," " was made throughout England, inviting 
'younger brothers of good families' to undertake 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 139 

the plantation of Desmond — each planter to ob- 
tain a certain scope of land, on condition of set- 
tling thereupon so many families — ' none of the 
native Irish to be admitted.' Under these condi- 
tions, Sir Christopher Hatton took up 10,000 
acres in Waterford ; Sir Walter Raleigh, 1 2,000 
acres, partly in Waterford and partly in Cork ; 
Sir William Harbart, or Herbert, 13,000 acres in 
Kerry; Sir Edward Denny, 6,000 acres in the 
same county; Sir Warren St. Leger, and Sir 
Thomas Norris, 6,000 acres each in Cork ; Sir 
William Courtney, 10,000 acres in Limerick; Sir 
Edward Fitton, 11,500 acres in Tipperary and 
Waterford ; and Edmund Spenser, 3,000 acres in 
Cork, on the beautiful Blackwater. The other 
notable undertakers were the Hides, Butchers, 
Wirths, Berkleys, Trenchards, Thorntons, Bourch- 
ers, Billingsleys, etc. Some of these grants, es- 
pecially Raleigh's, fell in the next reign to Richard 
Boyle, the so-called 'great Earl of Cork ' — proba- 
bly the most pious hypocrite to be found in the 
lono- ro ll f the ' Munster Undertakers.' " 

And so ended the first great work of trans- 
ferring the soil of Ireland. The work continued 
throughout the three following reigns. 

The Irish hailed the accession of the son of the 
Catholic Mary of Scotland with great joy and 
hopes for a happier era for their faith and coun- 
try, but they were destined to be cruelly and 
quickly undeceived. One of the earliest acts of 



140 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the King- was a declaration that liberty of con- 
science was not to be granted ; but it soon be- 
came evident that the policy of Anglicising Ire- 
land begun in the previous reign was to be 
carried out in the present in a thorough and 
systematic manner. 

The King had fixed his eyes on Ulster as a 
fitting quarter in which to carry out a scheme of 
plantations, and a scheme for getting rid of the 
native chiefs was speedily developed. This was 
found in the discovery of an anonymous letter 
conveniently discovered at the door of the Coun- 
cil Chamber in Dublin Castle, disclosing a con- 
spiracy on the part of the Earls of O'Neill and 
O'Donnell against the authority of the Crown. 
No evidence was then nor has been since discov- 
ered, of this alleged conspiracy, but the earls 
were at once proclaimed traitors and fled the 
kingdom with their families and a few friends and 
retainers. Ulster was nbw ready to James' hand. 
It was described as a fertile province, well watered, 
plentifully supplied with all the necessaries for 
man's subsistence, and yielded abundant products 
for purposes of commerce. The lands were in- 
deed occupied by the Irish natives, who had on the 
King's accession been assured in their possession 
of their fields on a tenure which would remain un- 
affected by the submission or rebellion of their 
chiefs. But they could be easily dealt with. 

A proclamation was issued confiscating and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. -^ 

vesting in the Crown six counties in Ulster — 
Tyrone, Derry, Donegal, Armagh, Fermanagh, 
and Cavan, comprising in all three and three- 
quarter millions of acres. The scheme of settle- 
ment was carefully designed to avoid the errors 
of former plantations. Those in previous reigns 
had been acknowledged failures, by reason of the 
enormous size of the grants made to the " under- 
takers." The " undertakers," as Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh and his countrymen were called, found their 
grants too large to settle and farm personally. 
They returned for the most part to England, took 
no trouble to plant English farmers in the land, 
suffered the Irish to remain on the land, and drew 
their rents in peace. 

In Ulster, however, the tracts were to be of 
manageable extent ; the natives were to have lo- 
cations of their own to which they were to be 
removed ; the new settlers, drawn from England 
and Scotland, were to be massed and grouped 
together for mutual protection. The escheated 
lands were to be divided into lots of from 1,000 to 
2,000 acres, at rents of \%d. to 2%d. per acre, 
and distributed partly among the new settlers, 
partly among English servitors, and partly among 
the~ well-affected natives. Every "undertaker" 
bound himself to plant on the soil a certain num- 
ber of fee-farmers, lease-holders, artisans, and 
laborers, down to the lowest grade ; all grantees 
and their tenants were to take the oath of su- 



1 42 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

premacy, and none, were permitted to employ 
natives or Catholics in any capacity whatsoever. 

Of the three and three-quarter millions of acres 
which were confiscated, about one-fifth was valua- 
ble or "fat" land, and this was mainly appor- 
tioned in this manner. Fifty Englishmen and 
fifty-nine Scotchmen (the needy countrymen of 
the King) got among them 162,500 acres. The 
most noticeable names among the English plant- 
ers were Powell, Heron, Ridgway, Willoughbie, 
Parsons, Audley, Davis, Blennerhasset, Wilson, 
Cornwall, Mansfield, and Archdale, and among 
the Scotch Douglas, Abercorn, Boyd, Stewart, 
Cunningham, Rallston, and the prolific breed of 
the Hamiltons, who obtained estates by the 
thousand acres in every one of the six counties, 
and whose descendants are to be found to-day in 
every office of profit and emolument in the 
country. 

Sixty servitors, or persons who had served the 
Crown in a civil or military capacity, swallowed 
up 50,000 acres, and among these were some of 
the prominent organizers of this wholesale plun- 
der and some of the cruel enemies and oppressors 
of the Celtic population. Chief amongst these 
were Sir Toby Caulfie.ld, Sir William Parsons, 
surveyor-general of the lands, ancestor of the 
present Lord Rosse, Sir Robert Wingfield, astute 
legal sycophant, Sir John Davis, Sir Henry Fol- 
liot, the merciless Sir Arthur Chicester, lord 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 143 

deputy and superintendent of the plantation, and 
captains and lieutenants of lesser fame, Cooke, 
Atherton, Stewart, Vaughan, Browne, Atkinson, 
etc. Seventy-seven thousand acres fell to the 
share of the Protestant bishops, deans and chap- 
ter, who had already obtained possession of all 
the Catholic churches and abbeys throughout the 
island. Trinity College, Dublin, founded in the 
late reign, obtained 30,000 acres (47,101 acres 
were reserved for corporate towns), and the 286 
so-styled loyal Irish received about 180 acres 
each, of what, it may be safely asserted, was the 
most unprofitable portion of the "lean." 

The Corporation of the City of London, and the 
twelve City Guilds, the Companies of Skinners, 
Fishmongers, Haberdashers and the like, took up 
the whole county of Derry, 209,800 acres in ex- 
tent, and absentee proprietors on a large scale 
have drawn rents from that time to the present 
from lands they have never seen. 

Meantime, the native peasantry were driven 
out of their tribal lands, the rich glens of Antrim, 
the meadow lands of Fermanagh, the fertile 
plains of Armagh, into the waste-lands, mountain, 
moor, bog, marsh of these and the adjoining 
counties. 

Shielded, favored, and aided by the law, the 
success of the plantation made itself apparent 
when in a few years commissioners were sent 
down to report progress. The English and 



144 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Scotch grantees were actually occupying their 
lands with their wives and families. The village 
of Derry had become the town of " London- 
derry," with ramparts twelve feet thick, and bat- 
tlemented gates. Castles, mansions, farm-houses, 
sprang up everywhere ; millwheels turned, or- 
chards bloomed, villages and towns rose all 
around. 

Nevertheless the strict letter of the scheme was 
not and could not be carried out. Sufficient 
laborers of British birth could not be obtained, 
and numbers of the natives had to be employed 
as " hewers of wood and drawers of water," and 
also as tenants, who, in order to remain in their 
beloved homes, were willing to pay double rents 
to new masters. And many English and Scotch 
tenants, failing to obtain from the large proprie^ 
tors the long leases guaranteed to them by the 
terms of the act of settlement, sold their interest 
in their holdings to the Irish and others, and re- 
tired in disgust from the country. It was mainly 
in this manner sprang up the custom of Ulster 
Tenant-right as a part of the unwritten law of the 
province, destined to share largely in the causes 
which operated to contrast the well-being of its 
land-occupiers with the insecurity and misery of 
the same class in other parts of Ireland. 

The effect of the Ulster settlement was to 
create a lesser Britain in Ireland, composed of 
men whose very proximity to their plundered 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 145 

neighbors seemed to arouse their worst passions 
of hatred and sectarian bitterness. It deprived 
the native Irish of all title to the lands which their 
race had held from time immemorial, and reduced 
them at one sweep from the position of owners 
of the soil they tilled to that of outlaws or tenants- 
at-will, only countenanced through sheer neces- 
sity, and established between Ulster and the 
other provinces of Ireland a contrast at once pro- 
found and painful, and a discord of religion, feel- 
ing and nationality which has often manifested 
themselves since in civil disorder and disgraceful 
feuds, and which are only slowly disappearing in 
our own day. 

The coffers of James were so well filled with the 
profits of the Ulster settlement — with the pro- 
ceeds of the sale of broad acres and brand-new 
baronetcies — that his eyes turned to the other 
parts of Ireland for similar spoil. And a system 
of plunder by legal chicanery was invented. The 
counties still inhabited by the native Irish were 
Wicklow, Wexford, and those lying along the left 
bank of the Shannon, viz., Leitrim, Longford, 
and the western portion of Westmeath, Kings, 
and Queens Counties. 

"A Commission of Inquiry into Defective 
Titles " was sent down into these districts with 
directions to collect evidence as to the holding- of 
the land therein, and what title the Crown had in 
any part of the same. It was gravely asserted 



140 GLADSTONE- PARNELL. 

that, whereas the Anglo-Norman settlers to whom 
the Plantagenet Kings granted these lands 300 
years back had in later evil days been driven 
from their grants by the original native owners, 
and retired to England, the deserted"" lands had, 
through the action of various statutes against 
absentees, reverted to the Crown. 

To give an appearance of legality to the pro- 
ceedings of the Commission, juries were empan- 
elled and forced to gfive verdicts in favor of the 
Crown ; witnesses were compelled to supply 
satisfactory evidence — the means employed for 
the purpose being of the most revolting descrip- 
tion. Courts-martial were held before which un- 
willing witnesses were tried on charges of treason, 
imprisoned, pilloried, branded with red-hot irons, 
and even put to death, some being actually 
roasted on gridirons over charcoal fires. A 
horde of " discoverers" sprang up whose business 
it became to pick holes in men's titles to estates, 
sharing the proceeds with the King. Every legal 
trick and artifice was unscrupulously resorted to. 
The old pipe-rolls in Dublin and the patent rolls 
in the Tower of London were searched to dis- 
cover flaws in titles, clerical errors, inaccurate 
wording, every defect in fact which might frighten 
the present holder of the land into paying a 
heavy amount for a fresh patent, or, failing his ac- 
quiescence, would entitle the handing over of his 
estate to some " discoverer," willing to lay down 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 147 

a round sum for it. By such means as these 
over 430,000 acres were confiscated in the coun- 
ties above mentioned. The old proprietors were 
required to sign surrenders of their lands, and 
after setting apart a considerable portion for 
glebes, etc., and a fourth part for English " under- 
takers," the remainder was restored to " the more 
deserving " at fixed rents. 

In Longford the natives obtained less than one- 
third of the land promised them, in Leitrim half, 
in Queens county about two-thirds. In Wexford 
thirty-one " undertakers " obtained 33,000 acres, 
and only fifty-seven natives received any land at 
all, and that to the amount of 24,615 acres of the 
most unprofitable portion. The residue of the in- 
habitants of this county, some 14,500 persons, 
were given merely the choice of being evicted or 
becoming tenants-at-will. Many of the old pro- 
prietors took to the woods and became " outlaws;" 
others like the tribe of the O'Moores in Queens 
county were transplanted bodily into Kerry. 

In Wicklow the O'Byrnes, whose estates cov- 
ered half the county, were imprisoned on a charge 
of conspiracy, trumped up against them by Sir 
William Parsons, Lord Esmond, Sir Richard 
Graham and other prominent undertakers, on the 
evidence of notorious thieves. They were ulti- 
mately declared Innocent and set at liberty, but 
their lands had been in the meantime declared 
forfeit and divided between Parsons and Esmond, 
and were not afterwards restored to them. 



148 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The King profited immensely by the various 
fines and forfeitures, and the customs duties 
swelled in a single year from ^50 to ,£10,000. 

The plantation policy flooded Ireland with a 
host of impecunious Englishmen and Scotch- 
men — admittedly the scum of both nations — 
debtors, bankrupts, fugitives from justice, land- 
jobbers and land-speculators, who soon, through 
ownership of land, secured power, influence and 
rank. They held aloof from the natives, culti- 
vated the " Castle," and were the embryo of the 
Protestant ascendency and aristocracy of later 
days. 

More than half the present Irish peerage 
sprang from such beginnings, of which two ex- 
amples will serve as types of the whole. The 
most remarkable of the new nobility was Richard 
Boyle. He was the son of a Herefordshire 
squire, fled from England on account of his 
perjuries and forgeries, and landed in Dublin 
with only a few pounds in his pocket. He man- 
aged to get the office of deputy escheator of 
the lands of Munster, fraudulently became pos- 
sessed of a considerable extent of forfeited Irish 
estates ; and though imprisoned for felony six 
times in five years cheated justice, ingratiated 
himself with the various lord-deputies, and finally 
became first Earl of Cork and a privy-councillor. 

Of the same kidney was William Parsons, an- 
cestor of the Earls of Rosse. An English ad- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 149 

venturer, arriving in Ireland with only £40 in 
his pocket, he married a niece of the Surveyor- 
General, succeeded to that office, and became a 
commissioner of the escheated lands in Ulster, 
obtaining for himself 1,890 acres in Tyrone, and 
2,000 acres in Fermanagh alone. Ultimately 
through means as unscrupulous as those by which 
he deprived the O'Byrnes of their lands he se- 
cured over 8,000 acres and amassed an immense 

fortune. 

The system of " inquiry into defective titles " 
in Leinster had proved so remunerative that 
James determined to extend it to hitherto un- 
touched parts of the island. The province of 
Connaught was the only one which had not been 
planted. The proprietors had in 161 6 made a 
surrender of their lands to the King to receive 
new patents, for which they paid fees amounting 
to ,£3,000. Owing, however, to the neglect of the 
clerks in Chancery, neither the surrenders nor 
regrants were enrolled, and the titles were all 
declared defective and the lands held to be 
vested in the Crown. A proclamation was issued 
for a new plantation, but the alarmed proprietors, 
aware that it was money the King was most in 
need of, offered him a bribe of £10,000 (equal 
to £100,000 at the present day) to induce him 
to abandon his design. The death of James put 
an end to the negotiations, and it was reserved 
for his son, Charles I., to replenish the royal 



150 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

coffers at the expense of the Connaught land- 
owners. His agent in this matter was the no- 
torious Wentworth, who carried out his policy 
of " thorough " by dragooning both the Irish 
Parliament and the Irish Church, forcing the one 
to vote enormous subsidies, and the other to ac- 
cept his ideas in matters of religion. Under 
threats of confiscation, various subsidies were ob- 
tained, but at last after an elaborate hunting up 
and inquiry into old title-deeds and royal grants, 
the whole of Connaught was declared to be the 
property of the Crown ; and Commissioners with 
Wentworth at their head went into the province 
to find verdicts for the King. These were ob- 
tained by the same means as had succeeded in 
Leinster, extreme resistance being only met with 
in Gal way alone, where juries were fined ,£4,000 
apiece, and lodged in prison until the fines were 
paid, or their decisions retracted. The landlords 
at last submitted, paid heavily in fines, gave up a 
portion of their estates for Church purposes, and 
were so left in peace. 

The Irish met this ill-treatment on the part of 
the perfidious Stuart with a loyalty that may be de- 
scribed according- to taste as generous Q r imbecile. 
When the rebellion broke out in England, Charles 
appealed for help to his subjects in Ireland. 
They rose in arms, both Catholic and Protestant, 
and came nearer to victory than they had been 
for many a long year ; and then, when Charles 



THE tiKEAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ]r^ 

was defeated and beheaded, Vae victis was the 
cry. Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland. He suc- 
ceeded in quelling the revolt in favor of the King 
after the most wholesale massacres ; and then oc- 
curred the greatest scheme of confiscation yet de- 
scribed in the history of the Irish nation. The 
whole of Ireland, 20,000,000 acres, was declared 
forfeit, and three-fourths of the inhabitants were 
to be expelled. Exemption was made in favor 
of some husbandmen, plowmen, laborers, and 
artificers, who would be necessary to the new 
planters, and of a few well affected to the Com- 
monwealth. The Irish soldiers who laid down 
their arms were forced to enlist for foreign ser- 
vice. The widows, wives and families of the sol- 
diery to the number of 100,000 souls were trans- 
ported to the West Indies to be the slaves or 
mistresses of the planters there. The rest of the 
Irish people — of Munster, Leinster, Ulster — gentle 
and simple, land-owners and burgesses, Presby- 
terians and Catholics, were forced, ia the depth 
of the winter of 1655, to leave their homes, and 
cross the Shannon to allotments assigned to them 
in Clare and Connaught, the most barren portions 
of all Ireland, where they were hemmed in by the 
sea on the one side and a ring of soldiers on the 
other, who had orders to shoot down all who 
attempted to cross the boundary. The evacuated 
land, 15,582,487 acres in extent, was then dis- 
tributed, the government first reserving to itself 



152 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the cities, church-lands, tithes, and the four coun- 
ties of Dublin, Kildare, Carlow and Cork. The 
cities were afterwards cleared of their inhabitants 
(who were nearly all of English descent) and 
sold to English merchants. The other twenty- 
three counties were then divided between those 
"adventurers" who had advanced money 
(amounting to ^360,000) to the Parliamentary 
army and the Parliamentary troops in lieu of 
arrears of pay due to them amounting to £1,- 
550,000. County Louth was given wholly to the 
adventurers, and the counties of Donegal, Derry, 
Tyrone, Leitrim, Fermanagh, Cavan, Monaghan, 
Wicklow, Wexford, Longford, Kilkenny and 
Kerry wholly to the soldiers. Then Antrim and 
Limerick and the nine counties lying diagonally 
between them, viz., Down, Armagh, Meath, West- 
meath, Kildare, Carlow, Kings, Queens, and Tip- 
perary were divided amongst both classes of 
claimants. Afterwards portions of Connaught, 
viz., the county of Sligo and parts of Mayo and 
Leitrim, were taken from the transplanted Irish 
to satisfy arrears of pay due to part of the English 
army who had fought in England during the civil 
war. Debentures were issued in recognition of 
each claim, and localities assigned to each regi- 
ment. These debentures were put up to auction, 
and large estates were put together by the pur- 
chase of them. 

And yet the plantation failed in its main object, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 353 

as previous ones had done, through the gradual 
absorption of the planters among the native Irish 
notwithstanding strict prohibitions against mutual 
intercourse. And many estates through purchase 
or marriage fell again into the hands of old 
masters. Forty years after the settlement, it is 
related that numbers of the children of Crom- 
well's soldiers could not speak a word of English. 
Thus ended the last great unsettlement of the 
Irish land. In the reion of William III. there 
were some large confiscations, but they sunk into 
insignificance beside the wholesale confiscations 
in the days of Elizabeth, James and Cromwell. 
The reign of William III. is mainly remarkable 
for the passing of what is known as the Penal 
Code. The horrors of this code are increased 
by the fact that it was passed in spite of the 
solemn compact between the English and the 
Irish. In the civil war between James II. and 
William III. the Irish with characteristic imbecility 
had fought on the side of the State. The final 
issue was before the city of Limerick, which was 
defended by Sarsfield, an Irish general of genius. 
After a long siege it was finally agreed that the 
garrison should surrender with all the honors of 
war, and that in return they should get con- 
cessions establishing fully their religious liberty. 
The first article of the new treaty provided that 
"the Roman Catholics of this kingdom shall 
enjoy such privileges in the exercise of religion 



154 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

as are consistent with the laws of Ireland, or as 
they did enjoy in the reign of Charles II., and 
their Majesties, as soon as their affairs will permit 
them to summon a Parliament in this kingdom, 
will endeavor to procure the Roman Catholics 
such further security in that particular as may 
preserve them from any disturbance upon the ac- 
count of their said religion." The ink of this 
was scarcely dry when Catholics were ordered at 
the meetinof of the Irish Parliament to take an 
oath denying the Catholic doctrine of transub- 
stantiation and pronouncing the sacrifice of the 
Mass damnable and idolatrous. No Catholic 
could, of course, take such an oath, and the de- 
sired result was brought about. The Irish Par- 
liament consisted exclusively of Protestants. 
The penal code first took precautions against the 
education of Catholics. They were forbidden to 
keep school in Ireland and were prohibited at 
the same time to send their children to be edu- 
cated abroad ; then they were disarmed, and 
statutes were passed prohibiting the makers of 
weapons from receiving Catholic apprentices, and 
that authorized the authorities to search for arms 
in the houses of Catholics by night and by day. 
Catholic priests were commanded to leave the 
kingdom before May 9th, 1668. The bishops and 
priests who ventured to enter the country were 
subjected to imprisonment and banishment for the 
first offence, and put to death on the second. In 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 157 

the reien of Anne the code was rendered still more 
severe. In order further to prevent the chance 
of education, a Catholic could not employ or act 
as a private tutor. He could not buy land, and 
if he did possess land he was obliged to leave it 
in equal parts among all his children, so that the 
papist land might be distributed and have no 
chance of accumulating. Then there was an 
atrocious law by which an eldest son, on becoming 
a Protestant, could obtain possession of the entire 
land and disinherit the rest of his relatives. A 
Catholic could not have a lease for more than 
thirty-one years. All the Civil Service, all the 
Municipalities, all the Army and the Navy, and the 
Professions, except that of medicine, were closed 
to the Catholics. A Catholic could not go more 
than five miles from his house without a pass- 
port. He could not keep a horse above the 
value of ^5. If the farm of a Catholic yielded 
one-third more than the yearly rent a Protestant 
by swearing to that fact could evict him ; and ii a 
Protestant could be proved guilty of holding an 
estate in trust for a Catholic he could be dis- 
possessed. The Penal Code invaded domestic 
life. A son becomine a Protestant could demand 
one-third of his father's income ; a wife be- 
coming a Protestant was free from her husband's 
control and could demand alimony. The decrees 
against priests were rendered also severe ; 3,000 
were registered, and others were liable to death, 



158 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and in order that no further priests might be 
ordained no bishop was allowed in the country. 
Under these laws there grew up the hateful race 
known to Irishmen as Priest-Hunters, who for 
the sake of fifty pounds' reward in the case of a 
bishop, twenty in the case of a priest, and ten 
pounds in that of a school-master, betrayed min- 
isters of religion and the humble promoters of 
education to the authorities. The Catholics 
refused to conform to these hideous laws. Mass 
was said on the mountains with scouts watching to 
see whether the British soldiers were approaching, 
and many priests fell martyrs to their creed. 
Finally the Catholics were prevented from voting 
for members of Parliament or members of cor- 
porations. The whole code was well summed up 
by the judge who declared that the law did not 
suppose the existence of any such person as an 
Irish Roman Catholic, nor could the people even 
breathe without the surveillance of the govern- 
ment. 






T 1 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE DESTRUCTION OF IRISH INDUSTRIES. 

'HE final result of it all — -the massacre, the 
X confiscation, the Penal Laws — was that at 
the beginning of the eighteenth century the Irish 
Catholics were owners of just one-seventh of the 
soil of Ireland. On the other hand, the landlords 
were placed in a position that developed between 
them and the tenantry the worst and the fiercest 
passions. They were foreigners, and they had 
acquired the lands of the natives by robbery or 
by massacre. They were Protestants, and the 
Penal Code, making the Catholic religion a legal 
offence, gave to the Protestant creed a social as- 
cendancy. On the one side the landlords re- 
garded themselves as by race and by creed ele- 
vated as much above the tenant as ever had South 
Carolina planter been over negro slaves ; and on 
the other hand the tenant saw in the landlord 
a tyrant with the hated additions of foreign blood 
and a different creed. From this evil state of 
things grew up the melancholy relations between 
the Irish landlord and the Irish tenant which have 
produced in Ireland a more morbid condition of 

159 



1(30 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

things than exists in any other part of the world 
and involved the two classes in a persistent, re- 
lentless, sanguinary war, which is not even yet 
closed, the landlords on their side treating the 
tenants as creatures, not merely of another race 
and creed, but of another and inferior species. 
They inflicted upon them sufferings that few men 
would care to inflict on the lower animals ; and 
the tenants responded by forming assassination 
lodges and perpetrating murders cold-blooded, 
systematic, unrepented. 

" Of all the fatal gifts," says Mr. Froude, deal- 
ing with this part of the case, " which we bestowed 
on our unhappy possession [Ireland], the greatest 
was the English system of owning land. Land, 
properly speaking, cannot be owned by any man 
— it belongs to all the human race. Laws have to 
be made to secure the profits of their industry to 
those who cultivate it ; but the private property 
of this or that person is that which he is entitled to 
deal with as he pleases ; this the land never ought 
to be and never strictly is. In Ireland, as in all 
primitive civilizations, the soil was divided among 
the tribes. Each tribe collectively owned its 
district. Under the feudal system the proprietor 
was the Crown, as representing the nation ; while 
subordinate tenures were held with duties attached 
to them, and were liable on their non-fulfil- 
ment to forfeiture. In England the burden of 
defence was on the land. Every gentleman, ac- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 1^ 

cording to his estate, was bound to bring so many 
men into the field properly armed and accoutred. 
When a standing army was substituted for the 
old levies, the country squires served as unpaid 
magistrates on the commission of the peace. 
The country squire system was, in fact, a develop- 
ment of the feudal system ; and, as we gave the 
feudal system to Ireland, so we tried long and 
earnestly to give them our landownership. The in- 
tention, doubtless, was as good as possible in both 
cases, but we had taken no trouble to understand 
Ireland, and we failed as completely as before. 
The duties attached to landed property died 
away or were forgotten — the ownership only re- 
mained. The people, retaining their tribal tra- 
ditions, believed that they had rights upon the 
land on which they lived. The owner believed 
that there were no rights but his own. In Eng- 
land the rights of landlords have similarly sur- 
vived their duties, but they have been modified 
by custom or public opinion. In Ireland the pro- 
prietor was an alien, with the fortunes of the resi- 
dents upon his estates in his hands and at his 
mercy. He was divided from them in creed and 
language ; he despised them, as of an inferior 
race, and he acknowledged no interest in common 
with them. Had he been allowed to trample on 
them, and make them his slaves, he would have 
cared for them, perhaps, a*s he cared for his 
horses. But their persons were free, while their 



1(32 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

farms and houses were his ; and thus his only 
object was to wring out of them the last penny 
which they could pay, leaving them and their 
children to a life scarcely raised above the level 
of their own pigs." 

Meantime the British authorities took care to 
aggravate all the evils of the land system by an- 
other set of laws. Manufactures might have 
drawn away a section of the people from agricul- 
ture, and would thus have relieved the pressure 
upon the soil. There would then have been less 
of the competition which placed the tenantry at 
the mercy of the landlords : the landlords would 
have been compelled to offer the tenant lower 
rents: and thus manufactures would have fulfilled 
a double purpose — they would have given employ- 
ment to the persons immediately engaged in the 
manufactories, and would have made life easier 
to those outside manufacturing - altogether : to 
those especially who were engaged in cultivating 
the soil. 

But even this outlet was forbidden, and a series 
of laws were passed, the effect and the deliberate 
object of which were to kill Irish manufactures. 

The attempts of England to interfere with Irish 
trade were made in two directions, namely, 
through legislative enactments in the English 
Parliament, and through the sinister influence of 
England over a too servile Irish Parliament. 
Looking at the relative commercial positions of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 1 fto 

England and Ireland at the present day, we are 
apt to overlook the fact that they were considered 
on terms of greater natural equality in past years, 
and that any advantage was rather on the side of 
the now poorer country. 

England had always been jealous of the least 
prospect of Irish prosperity ; but it was only in the 
reign of Charles II. that- any direct attempt was 
made to interfere with her growing industries. 
Ireland was, as of old, " rich in cattle ; " and at this 
time had a larore cattle-trade with England. Acts 
were passed in 1660-3 prohibiting all exports 
from Ireland to the colonies, also prohibiting the 
importation into England of Irish cattle, declaring 
the latter to be "a publtck nuisance;" likewise 
forbidding the importation of Irish sheep, beef, 
pork, and, later on, of butter and cheese. Ire- 
land was also omitted from the " Navigation 
Act," in consequence of which no goods could 
thenceforward be carried in Irish-built ships under 
penalty of forfeiture of ship and cargo. 

The result of these acts was to destroy the 
shipping trade of the country at a blow, and to so 
reduce the value of cattle in Ireland that " horses 
which used to fetch thirty shillings each were sold 
for dog's meat at twelve pence each, and beeves 
that before brought fifty shillings were sold for 
ten." 

Unable to make a profit from growing cattle, 
the Irish turned their pastures into sheepwalks, 



164 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and set to work to improve their woollen manu- 
factures with such success that the angfer and 
jealousy of English traders were once more ex- 
cited, and the ruin of this trade also was decided 
on. An address was presented in 1698 by both 
English Houses of Parliament to William III., 
complaining of the injury done to the English 
woollen trade by the growth of that trade in Ire- 
land, recommending its discouragement, and the 
encouragement, in lieu thereof, of the linen trade, 
to which both Houses promised their utmost 
assistance. To this address His Majesty vouch- 
safed the following gracious reply : " I shall do 
all that in me lies to discourage the woollen man- 
facture in Ireland, and encourage the linen man- 
ufacture there, and to promote the trade of 
England." 

In view of promises of encouragement of the 
linen trade, the Irish Parliament, moved on by 
the King's Irish ministers, placed forthwith a pro- 
hibitive duty on all flannels, serges, and such like 
woollen stuffs ; but, not content with this, the 
English Parliament passed an act prohibiting the 
export of Irish wool or woollen goods to any port 
in the world, except a few English ports, and for- 
bidding its shipment from any but five or six ports 
in Ireland. 

It might have been expected that the promise 
to promote Irish linen industry would have been 
honorably kept. But the promise was distinctly 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. J (55 

violated. The importation of foreign linens into 
the kingdom was encouraged, and a disabling 
duty was laid on Irish sail-cloth, in which branch 
of the linen trade Ireland had prospered so much 
as to supply sails for the whole British navy. 

It was, however, not only in these large indus- 
tries that the infatuated jealousy of England was 
felt ; such smaller matters as the Irish trade in 
glass, cotton, beer, and malt being struck at by 
heavy prohibitive duties. " England," says Froude, 
writing of these laws, " governed Ireland for her 
own interests ... as if right and wrong had 
been blotted out of the statute book of the uni- 
verse." 

The general result of these successive blows at 
nascent Irish industries was most disastrous. The 
mischief was dealt, not so much on the crushed 
Celtic race, as on the wealthy citizens of the towns 
and seaports, English-descended, and the main- 
stay of English ascendancy. The destruction of 
the woollen and linen trades fell most severely on 
the Protestants, and in fifty years as many as 
200,000 persons left the country for North 
America, where they afterwards formed the back- 
bone of resistance to England in the War of Inde- 
pendence. 

We conclude by summarizing this sad relation 
of facts in the words of Lord Dufferin : 

" From Queen Elizabeth's reign until within a 

few years of the Union, the various commercial 
10 



\QQ GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

confraternities of Great Britain never for a mo- 
ment relaxed their relentless grip on the trades 
of Ireland. One by one each of our nascent in- 
dustries was either strangled in its birth or 
bound to the jealous custody of the rival interest 
in England, until at last every fountain of wealth 
was hermetically sealed, and even the traditions 
of commercial enterprise have perished through 
desuetude. What has been the consequence of 
such a system, pursued with relentless pertinacity 
for over 250 years ? This : that, debarred from 
every other trade and industry, the entire nation 
flung itself back on 'the land' with as fatal an im- 
pulse as when a river whose current is suddenly 
impeded rolls back and drowns the valley it once 
fertilized."* 

" The entire nation flung- itself back on the 
land," with the result that the tenants were placed 
at the absolute mercy of the landlords. Deprived 
of every other form of making a livelihood, the 
possession of land meant the chance of life ; the 
want of land, the certainty of death. With such 
a population craving for land as hope, food, life, 
the landlord was in a position as supreme as the 
armed keeper of the stores might be with the 
famished victims of a shipwreck on a raft in the 
middle of the ocean : and most cruelly did the 
landlord use the omnipotence which British laws 

* "Irish Emigration, and the'Tenure of Land in Ireland." 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 167 

had thus placed in his hands. The pictures of 
Irish life in the eighteenth century are drawn, as 
those of the preceding centuries, mainly by Eng- 
lish and Protestant hands ; and they give pictures 
almost as horrible of the manner in which a nation 
can be murdered. Rack-renting' and eviction 
and robbery by act of Parliament had been sub- 
stituted for massacre by the sword, but the re- 
sults remained the same: the people were de- 
stroyed. Above all, one great weapon of the 
days of the gentle and poetic Spenser and of the 
pious Cromwell still remained. Famine was at 
once a means and a result. 

English writers of the eighteenth century teem 
with denunciations of the rack-renting and the 
other cruelties inflicted by landlords upon the 
tenants. Bishop Berkeley describes the landlords 
as " men of vulturine beaks and bowels of iron." 
Swift, writing about 1724, said: " These cruel land- 
lords are every day unpeopling the kingdom, for- 
bidding their miserable tenants to till the earth, 
ao-ainst common reason and justice, and contrary 
to the practice and prudence of all other nations, 
by which numberless families have been forced to 
leave the kingdom, or stroll about and increase 
the number of our thieves and beggars. . . . The 
miserable dress and diet and dwellings of the peo- 
ple ; the general desolation in most parts of the 
kingdom ; the old seats of the nobility and gentry 
all in ruins, and no new ones in their stead ; the 



16$ GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

families of farmers, who pay great rents, living in 
filth and nastiness, upon buttermilk and potatoes, 
without a shoe or stocking to their feet, or a house 
so convenient as an English hogsty to receive 
them — these, indeed, may be comfortable sights 
to an English spectator, who comes for a short 
time only to learn the language, and returns back 
to his own country, whither he finds all our wealth 
transmitted. . . . Nostra miseria magna est. There 
is not one argument used to prove the riches of 
Ireland which is not aTocncal demonstration of its 
poverty. . . . The rise of our rents is squeezed out 
of the very blood and vitals and clothes and dwell- 
ings of the tenants, who live worse than English 
beggars. . . . ' Ye are idle, ye are idle,' answered 
Pharaoh to the Israelites, when they complained 
to His Majesty that they were forced to make 
bricks without straw." It was the sight of mis- 
eries such as these that suggested to Swift his 
most savage and most terrible satire. It is worth 
while oivino- an extract from his " Modest Pro- 
posal for Preventing the Children of the Poor 
from being a Burden to their Parents." It is a 
most eloquent picture of Ireland in those days : 

"The number of souls," he writes, "in this 
kingdom being usually reckoned one million and 
a half, of these I calculate there may be about two 
hundred thousand couple whose wives are 
breeders ; from which number I subtract thirty 
thousand couple who are able to maintain their 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. \Q$ 

own children (although I apprehend there cannot 
be so many under the present distresses of the 
kingdom). . . . The question, therefore, is how 
this number (one hundred and twenty thousand 
children annually born) shall be reared and pro- 
vided for? — which, as I have already said, under 
the present situation of affairs, is utterly impos- 
sible by all the methods hitherto proposed. . . . 
I do therefore offer it to the publick consideration, 
that, of the one hundred and twenty thousand chil- 
dren already computed, twenty thousand may be 
reserved for breed. . . . That the remaining one 
hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered 
in sale to persons of quality and fortune through 
the kingdom, always advising the mother to let 
them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to 
render them plump and fat for a good table. . . . 
I have reckoned, upon a medium, that a child just 
born will weigh twelve pounds, and, in a solar 
year, if tolerably nursed, will increase to twenty- 
eight pounds. I grant this food will be somewhat 
dear, and, therefore, very proper for landlords, 
who, as they have already devoured most of the 
parents, have the best title to the children." After 
dilating on the succulent properties of infant flesh 
for nurses : " I have already computed the charge 
of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon 
all cottagers, laborers, and four-fifths of the farm- 
ers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags 
included ; and I believe no gentleman would re- 



170 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

pine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good 
fat child, which, I have said, will make four dishes 
of excellent, nutritive meat, when he has only 
some particular friend or his own family to dine 
with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a 
good landlord and grow popular among the 
tenants; the mother will have eisrht shillings neat 
profit, and be fit for work till she produces an- 
other child." He then suggests to the " more 
thrifty (such as the times require) to flay the car- 
cass, the skin of which, artificially dressed, would 
make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer 
boots for fine gentlemen ; " " the establishment of 
shambles, butchers being sure not to be wanting," 
and the " buying the children alive, and dressing 
them hot from the knife as we do roasting pigs." 
Having thus disposed of the infants, he came to 
the grown-up portion of the " beggars," and at 
the suggestion of " a very worthy person, a true 
lover of his country," recommends that "the want 
of venison might be well supplied by the bodies 
of young lads and maidens, not exceeding four- 
teen years, nor under twelve — so great a number 
of both sexes being ready to starve in every 
county for want of work and service. . . . Neither, 
indeed, could he deny that if the same use were 
made of several plump, young girls in this town 
[Dublin], who, without one single groat to their 
fortunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair, and 
appear at a play-house and assemblies in foreign 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 171 

fineries which they never will pay for, the king- 
dom would not be the worse." And lastly, as to 
" these vast number of poor people who are aged, 
diseased, and maimed," he was " not in the least 
pained upon that matter, because it was very well 
known that they were every day dying and rot- 
ting by cold, famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast 
as could be reasonably expected." 

"Such," comments Healy, in his "Word for 
Ireland," " is the picture of Irish wretchedness 
when our population was only one million and a 
half, and before the phrase ' congested districts ' 
was invented." 

The result of this state of things was that semi- 
starvation was chronic throughout Ireland and 
absolute famine periodic. In 1725-26-27-2% 
there were bad harvests ; and in 1 739 there was 
severe frost. In every one of these cases there was 
famine. In 1 739 there was a prolonged frost, with 
the result that in 1740-41 there was one of the 
most severe famines in Irish history. This was 
the first occasion on which was observed the 
phenomenon that, as will be seen afterwards, has 
played a terrible and important part in Irish life. 
The frost brought on potato-rot, and the potato- 
rot brought on universal famine. There are 
plenty of contemporaneous records of the suffer- 
ing which this created. "Want and misery in 
every face, the rich unable to relieve the poor, the 
roads spread with dead and dying ; mankind of 



172 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the color of the weeds and nettles on which they 
feed ; two or three, sometimes more, on a car, 
going to the grave, for the want of bearers to 
carry them, and many buried only in the fields and 
ditches where they perished. Fluxes and malig- 
nant fevers swept off multitudes of all sorts, so 
that whole villages were laid waste. If one for 
every house in the kingdom died, and that is very 
probable, the loss must be upwards ol 400,000 
souls. This is the third famine I have seen in 
twenty years, and the severest ; these calamities 
arise from the want of proper tillage laws to pro- 
tect the husbandmen." " I have seen," says Bishop 
Barclay, " the laborer endeavoring to work at his 
spade, but fainting for the want of food, and 
forced to quit it. I have seen the aged father eat- 
ing grass like a beast, and in the anguish of his 
soul wishing for his dissolution. I have seen the 
helpless orphan exposed on the dunghill, and 
none to take him in for fear of infection ;' and I 
have seen the hungry infant sucking at the breast 
of the already expired parent." 

" I am well acquainted," said Fitzgibbon in the 
Irish House of Commons, in 1787 — a man who 
will reappear as one of the most violent sup- 
porters of British rule in Ireland — " with the prov- 
ince of Munster, and I know that it is impossible 
for human wretchedness to exceed that of the 
miserable peasantry of that province. I know 
that the unhappy tenantry are ground to powder 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 175 

by relentless landlords. I know that far from 
being able to give the clergy their just dues 
[Protestant tithes], they have not food or raiment 
for themselves ; the landlord grasps the whole. 
The poor people of Munster live in a more abject 
state of poverty than human nature can be sup- 
posed able to bear ; their miseries are intoler- 
able." 

These sufferings led to reprisals on the part of 
the tenants ; and from this period there dates the 
rising of the organizations which grave back assas- 
sinations in answer to rack-rents and eviction. 
"White Boys," "White Feet," "Peep-of-DayBoys," 
" Hearts of Steel" — these are among the many 
designations which these bodies were called by. 
They were sometimes founded by Catholics and 
sometimes by Protestants. The " Hearts of Steel," 
for instance, were all Protestants, who rose 
against the exactions on the estates of Lord 
Doneoal. The Irish Parliament answered the ex- 
cesses of the tenants by laws the savagery of 
which can scarcely be understood at this day. 
Death became a penalty for the most trivial 
offence, and every assize was followed by num- 
bers of executions. This, then, was the condition 
to which British law, confiscations, and the land 
system had brought the Irish nation. 

The vast majority of the natives were in a state 
of beggary and starvation. The land was over- 
run ; manufactures were dead ; between the land- 



176 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

lords and the tenants there raged civil war. All 
these phenomena will unfortunately reappear in 
the earlier part of the present century. For the 
present we have to pause to describe a brilliant 
but too brief interval in the tale of monotonous 
gloom. We have to tell the story of the Irish 
Parliament 



CHAPTER V. 

THE STCRY OF THE IRISH PARLIAMENT. 

IT will not be necessary for the purposes of this 
book to trace the history of the Irish Parlia-, 
ment back to the dim ages in which it took its 
origin. It will suffice for our purpose to start 
from the point when the controversy between the 
demands of an Irish Parliament for supremacy in 
Ireland and the demands of the English Parlia- 
ment to control its proceedings came to be a 
burning question. 

The first great enactment which limited the 
power of the Irish Parliament is known as Poyn- 
ing's Law. This was passed in the reign of 
Henry VII. The Irish had taken the side of the 
Pretender Perkin Warbeck, and Sir Edward 
Poyning had been sent over by the King to put 
down the rebellion. Poyning, after some doubt- 
ful successes in the field, called together a Parlia- 
ment in Drogheda, and immediately induced it to 
pass a series of severe enactments against the 
native Irish and those English who had taken up 
their side and their habits. It has been seen in 

a preceding chapter how efforts had been made 

177 



178 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

by means of the most savage laws to keep up the 
separation between the two races, and how, in 
spite of these things, the two races had com- 
bined and had gradually melted in spite of their 
different origins into one common nationality. 
In a Parliament which had met in the city of Kil- 
kenny in the reign of Edward III., the act known 
as the Statute of Kilkenny had been passed, by 
which it had been made high treason to bring up, 
marry with, foster or stand sponsor to a Celtic 
native of Ireland. It was also enacted that any 
Englishman who should dress himself after the 
fashion of the Irish people, adopt an Irish name, 
speak the Gaelic tongue, wear a moustache, as 
was the custom in Ireland, or ride without a sad- 
dle, as was also an Irish custom, had his property 
confiscated or was imprisoned for life if he was 
poor. 

Poyning's Parliament confirmed the Statute of 
Kilkenny, with important modifications made 
necessary by the failure of the previous enact- 
ment. For instance, the portions of the Statute 
of Kilkenny were omitted which prohibited the 
use of the Irish language, for by this time that 
language had become common even in the Eng- 
lish pale, and the Custom of riding without a sad- 
dle had also become so general that it was 
deemed hopeless to try to prevent it. The im- 
portant business, however, done by the Parlia- 
ment of Drogheda was the passing of an act 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 179 

which made two memorable and fatal laws. 
First, no Parliament was in future to be held in 
Ireland "until the chief governor and council had 
certified to the King, under the Great Seal, as 
well the causes and considerations as the acts 
they designed to pass, and till the same should be 
approved by the King and Council." The effect 
of this act was that when any bill was passed by 
the Irish Parliament, it had to be approved by the 
English Privy Council, and the act had to be for- 
warded to England for the purpose of receiving 
their sanction or disapproval. Often bills were 
returned by the Privy Council completely di- 
vested of their original meaning. -On being re- 
turned to the Irish House of Commons no further 
alteration in the bill was permitted. 

The effect of this disastrous act was to deprive 
the Irish Parliament of any real power; the au- 
thority given to the English Parliament was fre- 
quently^and scandalously used, and prevented the 
application to Ireland of any of that broadening 
of popular liberties which had become apparent 
in England. For a considerable period the Eng- 
lish settlers in Ireland raised some objection to 
this degradation of their Parliament— for it was 
their own Parliament— but in later years they 
fully accepted it. It was made up of men of their 
creed and race. The Parliament was deemed by 
them to serve a useful purpose, because it was 
through the decrees of that body they were able 



180 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

to finish by chicanery the transfer of the soil that 
had been begun by the sword. The Irish Parlia- 
ment was employed to pass acts of attainder and 
forfeiture by which the estates of the Catholic 
Irish landlords were handed over to the English 
Protestant settlers, to confirm the defective titles 
that had been won on the field or in the law 
courts, and finally to pass the penal code by which 
the Catholics were excluded from the ownership 
of property and all possible share in the govern- 
ment of their country. 

But as time went on, the Irish Protestants 
found that the authority of the English Parliament 
was intended for use against all men of Irish 
birth whatever their creed or their orio-inal de- 
scent. The great positions of the country — the 
judgeships, the bishoprics, the places in the House 
of Peers and the House of Commons, the com- 
mands in the army and the navy, and all the high 
offices of state, were, in most cases, conferred on 
Englishmen. Englishmen were the "fathers in 
God " of dioceses that they never saw ; sate for 
constituencies which they had never cast eyes 
upon ; drew the salaries of offices in which they 
had never done a day's work; and outside all 
these great things stood shivering the Irish Prot- 
estants of English blood, naked and scorned. 
Meantime, the poverty of the country became 
daily deeper; the exaction of rent grew more 
difficult ; the kingdom was infested with bands of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 181 

wandering beggars ; and gentlemen of title, long 
descent and of ancestral homes sharing- in the 
general ruin, found the refusal of all positions a 
serious agorravation of their misfortunes. In the 
days of Dean Swift the government of Ireland 
was almost entirely in the hands of the Arch- 
bishop of Armagh, Primate Boulter. The cor- 
respondence of this prelate survives, and through 
it we are enabled to get many valuable glimpses 
of what the government of Ireland meant in his 
days. " Boulter," writes Lecky, in " Leaders of 
Public Opinion in Ireland," "was an honest but 
narrow man, extremely charitable to the poor, 
and liberal to the extent of warmly advocating 
the endowment of the Presbyterian clergy; but 
he was a strenuous supporter of the Penal Code, 
and the main object of his policy was to prevent 
the rise of an Irish party. His letters are chiefly 
on questions of money and patronage, and it is 
curious to observe how entirely all religious mo- 
tives appear to have been absent from his mind 
in his innumerable recommendations for church 
dignities. Personal claims, and above all the 
fitness of the candidate to carry out the English 
policy, seem to have been in these cases the only 
elements considered. His uniform policy was to 
divide the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protes- 
tants, to crush the former by disabling laws, to 
destroy the independence of the latter by con- 
ferring the most lucrative and influential posts 



J82 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

upon Englishmen, and thus to make all" Irish in- 
terests strictly subservient to those of England. 
The continual burden of his letters is the neces- 
sity of sending over Englishmen to fill important 
Irish posts. " The only way to keep things quiet 
here," he writes, "and make them easy to the 
Ministry is by filling the great places with natives 
of England." He complains bitterly that only 
nine of the twenty-two Irish bishops were Eng- 
lishmen, and urges the Ministers " gradually to 
get as many English on the Bench here as can 
decently be sent hither." On the death of the 
Chancellor, writing to the Duke of Newcastle, he 
speaks of "the uneasiness we are under at the 
report that a native of this place is like to be 
made Lord Chancellor." "I must request of 
your Grace," he adds, "that you would use your 
influence to have none but Englishmen put into 
the great places here for the future." 

When a vacancy in the See of Dublin was 
likely to occur he writes: "I am entirely of opinion 
that the new archbishop ought to be an English- 
man either already on the bench here or in Eng- 
land. As for a native of this 'country I can hardly 
doubt that, whatever his behavior has been and 
his promises may be, when he is once in that sta- 
tion he will put himself at the head of the Irish 
interest in the church at least, and he will natur- 
ally carry with him the college and most of the 
clergy here." 




EVICTED— HOMELESS. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. jg;"} 

Up to this time the protests against the degra- 
dation of the Irish Parliament had been confined 
to the native Irish. In a famous assemblage, 
known as the Confederation of Kilkenny, the 
claim of the Irish Parliament to the exclusive 
power to make laws for Ireland had been asserted ; 
and it was laid down with even more emphasis in 
a Parliament called together by James II. during 
his war with William III. It was not till 1 698 
that the first Protestant voice was raised in em- 
phatic protest. The author of this protest was 
Molyneux — one of the members for Trinity Col- 
lege ; Molyneux was, of course, a Protestant; no- 
body but a Protestant at the time had a seat in 
the Parliament. He was a man of great learning 
and ability ; of which among many other proofs is 
the fact that he was the " ingenious friend" to 
whom Locke dedicated his immortal essay. Moly- 
neux in his book, " The Case of Ireland Stated," 
laid down the claim of the Irish Parliament in 
clear and unmistakable lan<niaee. He had been 
induced to this train of thought by the infamous 
laws which had destroyed the woollen trade of 
Ireland, and in destroying that trade had terribly 
aggravated the miseries of the unhappy nation. 
The book was written in moderate and decorous 
lano-uacre ; but it was too strong for the oovern- 
ment of the day; the English Parliament decreed 
that it was dangerous, and that accordingly it 

should be burned by the common hangman. 
11 



1 84 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

But the spirit which Molyneux aroused was 
immortal, and indeed lies at the root of the Na- 
tional movement of to-day. There soon came, 
too, an event which was destined to aesravate 
the feelino-s of resentment which had been created 
by the restrictions on trade and by the rigid ex- 
clusion of the Irish gentry from all offices of pay 
and power. 

In the year 1719 Hester H. Sherlock brought 
an action against Maurice Annesley in reference 
to some property in the county of Kildare. The 
case was tried before the Irish Court of Ex- 
chequer, which decided in favor of Maurice An- 
nesley, the respondent in the case. Hester Sher- 
lock brought the case on appeal to the Irish 
House of Peers, and they reversed the judgment 
of the Court of Exchequer. Annesley then took 
the case to the English House of Peers, and they 
reversed the decision of the Irish Peers and con- 
firmed that of the Irish Court of Exchequer. 
This was regarded throughout Ireland as a gross 
infringement of the rights of the Irish Parliament. 
The Sheriff of Kildare acted upon the general 
opinion and recognized only the decision of the 
Irish House of Peers. He declined to obey the 
decree both of the Irish Court of Exchequer and 
the English House of Lords, and refused to com- 
ply with an order for placing Annesley in posses- 
sion of the property. The Court of Exchequer 
thereupon inflicted a fine upon the sheriff. The 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 185 

Irish House of Lords removed the fine and passed 
a resolution declaring that the sheriff had be- 
haved with integrity and courage. 

The English Parliament was not slow to respond 
to this open defiance of its authority, and it passed 
the famous law known as the Vlth of George^ I. 
The following extract will show what this law is : 
" Whereas, . . . the lords of Ireland have of late, 
against law, assumed to themselves a power and 
a & jurisdiction to examine and amend the judg- 
ments and decrees of the courts of justice in Ire- 
land ; therefore, ... it is declared and enacted 
that the King's Majesty, by and with the ad- 
vice and consent of the lords spiritual and tempo- 
ral and Commons of Great Britain in Parliament 
assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, 
full power and authority to make laws and stat- 
utes of sufficient force and validity to bind the 
people of the kingdom of Ireland. And it is fur- 
ther enacted and declared that the House of 
Lords of Ireland have not, nor of right ought to 
have, any jurisdiction to judge of, affirm, or re- 
verse, any judgment . . . made in any court in 
the said kingdom." 

It was in the height of the exasperation caused 
by arrogant denial of the rights of the Irish Par- 
liament that there came into Irish affairs one of 
the most potent influences by which they were 
ever guided. Dean Swift had about this time re- 
turned to Ireland, as he said himself, " like a rat 



1 86 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

dying in its hole." He saw all around him the. 
fearful sufferings of the people, the gross injus- 
tice of the landlords, the cruel harvest which the 
wicked legislation of England was reaping in 
barren fields, depopulated villages, and crowded 
and tumultuous beggary. It was then he began 
to publish that series of pamphlets on the 
Irish question which can be read with as much 
profit at this day as when they were first pub- 
lished. They afford, perhaps, the most graphic 
and telling picture of a nation's misery ever pro- 
duced. An accident soon enabled him to brine 
the growing resentment of Ireland into direct and 
successful collision with English authorities. Sir 
Robert Walpole, an English Premier of the time, 
gave a patent to a man named Wood for the pur- 
pose of coining ^8,000 in half-pence. The im- 
pression to-day is that the copper was badly 
wanted ; that Wood's half-pence were as good as 
those already existing, and that the Minister had 
no sinister idea of debasing the coinage of the 
country. " But," as Lecky remarks, " there were 
other reasons why the project was both dangerous 
and insulting. Though the measure was one 
profoundly affecting Irish interests, it was taken 
by the Ministers without consulting the Lord 
Lieutenant or Irish Privy Council, or the Parlia- 
ment, or any one in the country. It was another 
and a signal proof that Ireland had been reduced 
to complete subservience to England, and the 



iliK GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. Jg7 

patent was granted to a private individual by the 
influence of the Duchess of Kendal, the mistress 
of the King, and on the stipulation that she should 
receive a large share of the profits." 

Swift published a number of letters upon the 
new coin, with the result that the country was 
roused to a state of fury. Both Houses of the 
Irish Parliament passed addresses against it ; 
grand juries of Dublin and the gentry all over the 
country condemned it, and finally it had to be 
withdrawn from circulation. The indirect effects 
of this were more important than the mere small 
point of whether the coin was genuine or base. 
Swift, in his book, laid down clearly the same 
doctrine as Molyneux of the sole right of the 
Irish Parliament to pass measures for Ireland. 
He was a loyal subject of the. King, he declared, 
not as King of England, but King of Ireland. 
Ireland was a free nation, which implied in it the 
power of self-legislation, for such " Government 
without the consent of the governed is the very 
definitipn of slavery," says Swift ; a maxim, 
by the way, that applies as much to the case of 
Ireland to-day as to the case of Ireland in his 
days. Thus the demands of Ireland were once 
more put forward in clear terms that resounded 
all over the country. The second important re- 
sult was the union between the much-divided 
classes and sections of the Irish nation, which this 
legislation produced for almost the first time. "I 



188 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

find," wrote Primate Boulter, " by my own letters 
and others' enquiry, that the people of every reli- 
gion, country, and party, here are alike set 
against Wood's half-pence, and that their agree- 
ment in this has had a very unhappy influence on 
the state of this nation, by bringing on intimacies 
between Papists and Jacobites and the Whigs." 
The third and most satisfactory result of all was 
that it marked the first peaceful triumph of Ire- 
land over English interference. "There is," says 
Lecky, "no more momentous epoch in the his- 
tory of a nation than that in which the voice of the 
people has first spoken, and spoken with success. 
It marks the transition from an age of semi-bar- 
barism to an age of civilization — from the govern- 
ment of force to the government of opinion, 
Before this time rebellion was the natural issue 
of every patriotic effort in Ireland. Since then 
rebellion has been an anachronism and a mistake. 
The age of Desmond and of O'Neill had passed. 
The age of Grattan and of O'Connell had 
begun." 

It was these various causes that produced the 
rise in the Irish Parliament of the historic body 
of men known as the patriot party. When first 
these champions of Irish rights started out on 
their enterprise never did difficulties appear more 
gigantic, never task more hopeless. By various 
methods both Houses of Parliament had been 
reduced to a state of corruption and of subservi- 




THE LATE MR. HENRY GRATTAN, M. P. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 191 

ency perhaps unequalled in the annals of legisla- 
tive assemblies. 

The Catholics had no share whatever in the 
election of the Parliament, and even the Protes- 
tant minority was practically excluded from any 
real control. The plan of the English kings had 
been, in general, to make no increase whatever in 
the number of county constituencies; all new 
members were given to the boroughs. In some 
cases the new boroughs might be described as 
non-existent ; others consisted of but a few 
houses and inhabitants. The Stuarts had been 
the most shameless in this manufacture of unin- 
habited boroughs. James I. summoned a Parlia- 
ment in 1 613. There being about one hundred 
Catholics to one Protestant in Ireland at this 
time, it was naturally feared that there would be 
a Catholic majority in the Parliament (this was 
before the Catholics were excluded), and imme- 
diate measures were taken to prevent such a ma- 
jority from being elected. Seventeen new coun- 
ties and forty boroughs were created by royal 
charter in places thinly or not at all inhabited, 
and towns as yet only projected on the estates of 
the leading undertakers were named as boroughs. 
" Forty boroughs," quoth the King, when remon- 
strated with ; " suppose I had made four hundred 
— the more the merrier." There was, after all, 
a very strong Catholic minority in the lower 
House, but after an unseemly dispute about the 



192 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Speakership the Catholics left the House in a 
body. 

James I. passed away, and left his throne and 
some* of his propensities to his son Charles before 
another Parliament met in Dublin, in 1 634. Straf- 
ford was Lord Deputy, and in pursuance of his 
policy of " Thorough," exerted all his energies to 
satisfy his master's eager requests lor money. 
One of his first acts was to summon a Parliament, 
in which, by judicious management, the propor- 
tion of Catholics was reduced from nearly one- 
half to one-third of the assembly. By further 
official manipulation the two Houses were soon 
brought into a condition satisfactory to the Lord 
Deputy. The House of Lords consisted of 
about one hundred and seventy-eight temporal 
and twenty-two spiritual peers. Many of the 
temporal peers were Scotchmen and Englishmen, 
having no connection whatsoever with the coun- 
try, and having never seen it in their lives. The 
Bishops, nominees of the Ministry, were alto- 
gether out of sympathy with the people ; half of 
them were Englishmen, to account for whose con- 
duct Swift could only suggest that the real pre- 
lates sent over from England had been waylaid, 
robbed and stripped outside London by highway- 
men, who now masqueraded in their clothes. 

The lower House consisted of three hundred 
members, the bulk of whom were nominees of the 
great Protestant land-owners, members of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. J 93 

upper House ; two hundred being returnable by 
single individuals, and altogether two-thirds by 
less than a hundred persons, who openly made 
large sums of money by the sale of seats. Place- 
men and pensioners of the government filled 
many seats. There was no Ministry responsible 
to the Parliament ; the administration consisted 
of the English Viceroy and his English Secretary, 
nominees of the English government, together 
with a Privy Council, over none of whom had the 
Houses any control, and whose chief business was 
the carrying of measures pleasing to their mas- 
ters across the channel, by means of bribes, of 
titles and places, and the playing off of the differ- 
ent factions against each other. 

The patriot party of later days, headed by 
men like Flood, Lucas, Daly, and Burgh, made, 
night after night, persistent attacks along the 
whole line of monopoly and misgovernment — the 
law of Poyning, the Penal Code, the absence of 
an Irish Mutiny Bill, the bloated Pension List, the 
jurisdiction of the British Parliament. 

The government, harassed and perplexed, tried 
their old arts of seduction, but with only trifling 
success. The weakest of the patriots were bought 
over, but the remainder closed up their ranks and 
came on again to the assault. The first victory 
achieved by them was to obtain, in 1768, the pass- 
ing of a bill limiting to seven years the duration 
of Parliament, which hitherto lasted during an en- 



194 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tire reign, an act which Lecky describes as having 
laid " the foundation of parliamentary influence 
and independence in Ireland." To the first 
House of Commons elected under this act, the 
patriots were returned in greater force than be- 
fore, and soon to their ranks was added the 
power, the genius, the eloquence, and the enthu- 
siasm of Henry Grattan, who entered Parliament 
in 1775 for the borough of Charlemont. 

The next year the revolt in the North Ameri- 
can colonies broke out, and England, her avail- 
able troops being employed against the colonists, 
was obliged to leave Ireland defenceless, though 
American privateers and French men-of-war were 
hovering round her coasts. The Irish applied to 
the English authorities for soldiers to defend Ire- 
land ; the authorities declared that they had no 
troops to spare for Ireland. The Irish, under the 
circumstances, felt justified in taking means for 
their own defence. Men were enrolled rapidly 
all over the country ; before long no less than 
150,000 men were in arms, and thus arose the 
body known as the Irish Volunteers. 

Raised originally for the defence of Ireland 
against the enemies of England, the "Volunteers" 
naturally turned their eyes to the evils of their 
own country. The position of England, too, at 
that moment, showed that the hour had come 
when Ireland could demand her rights, with a 
reasonable chance of having them accepted. The 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 195 

Volunteers outside Parliament and the patriot 
party inside Parliament then devoted themselves 
to demanding an immediate redress of all their 
grievances. It is characteristic of the whole his- 
tory of Ireland that this National party displayed 
the highest spirit of religious toleration. The 
volunteers were Protestant to a man. The very 
first thing they did was to proclaim the right of 
every man in Ireland to the free exercise of his 
religion and to his due share of political rights 
altogether apart from his religious persuasion. 
Towards the close of the year 1781 the officers 
of the First Ulster Regiment of Volunteers, com- 
manded by Lord Charlemont, resolved to hold a 
convention of the Ulster Delegates at Dungan- 
non, and this convention assembled in the church 
in that ancient city in 1782. Then "the repre- 
sentatives," writes Mitchell, " of the regiments of 
Ulster — one hundred and forty-three corps — 
marched to the sacred place of meeting, two and 
two, dressed in various uniforms, and fully armed. 
Deeply they felt the great responsibilities which 
had been committed to their prudence and cour- 
age ; but they were equal to their task, and had 
not lightly pledged their faith to a trustful coun- 
try. The aspect of the church, the temple of re- 
ligion, in which, nevertheless, no grander cere- 
mony was ever performed, was imposing, or, it 
might be said, sublime. Never, on that hill where 
ancient piety had fixed its seat, was a nobler 



196 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

offering made to God than this, when two hun- 
dred of the elected warriors of a people assem- 
bled in His tabernacle, to lay the deep founda- 
tions of a nation's liberty." 

The convention then passed several resolutions, 
of which the following are the more important. 
First, it was " resolved unanimously, that a claim 
of any body of men, other than the King, Lords 
and Commons of Ireland, to make laws to bind 
this kingdom, is unconstitutional, illegal, and a 
grievance." Second, resolved with one dissent- 
ing voice only, " that the powers exercised by the 
Privy Councils of both kingdoms, under, or under 
color or pretence of, the law of Poyning, are un- 
constitutional and a grievance." " Resolved unani- 
mously, that the independence of judges is equally 
essential to the impartial administration of justice 
in Ireland as in England, and that the refusal or 
delay of this right to Ireland makes a distinction 
where there should be no distinction, may excite 
jealousy where perfect union should prevail, and 
is in itself unconstitutional and a grievance." 
But, perhaps, the two most important resolutions 
of all were the final closing ones : " Resolved, 
with two dissenting voices only to this and the 
following resolution, that we hold the right of 
private judgment in matters of religion to be 
equally sacred in others as ourselves." "Re- 
solved, therefore, that as men and as Irishmen, as 
Christians and as Protestants, we rejoice in the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 197 

relaxation of the penal laws against our Roman 
Catholic fellow-subjects, and that we conceive the 
measure fraught with the happiest consequences 
to the union and prosperity of the inhabitants of 
Ireland." 

Meantime the patriot party in Parliament acted 
in co-operation with the armed patriots outside. 
They saw that the time had come for pressing 
forward the claims of Ireland. Grattan was now 
the leader of the patriot party, and he first made 
an attack upon the law preventing Ireland from 
carrying on trade with the colonies. After some 
hesitation the motion was carried, and Ireland's 
right to free trade with other countries was estab- 
lished. Immediately after this came a move in 
favor of a greater and more important reform. 
Grattan brought in a Bill declaring in almost the 
same language as the resolutions passed at the 
Dungannon convention, that the King, Lords, and 
Commons of Ireland were the only persons com- 
petent to enact the laws of Ireland. A similar 
measure had been brought forward in the year 
1780, but then it had been rejected. But in 1782 
things were in a very different position. England 
had been beaten at Saragossa ; American inde- 
pendence had been established, and the patriot 
party had a backing of 100,000 armed men. At 
last the British government yielded, and the Duke 
of Portland was sent over as Lord Lieutenant to 
grant the prayer of Ireland. On the 1 6th of 



198 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

April, 17S2, Grattan brought forward his Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

" On that day a large body of the Volunteers 
were drawn up in front of the Old Parliament 
House of Ireland. Far as the eye could stretch 
the morning sun glanced upon their weapons and 
upon their flags ; and it was through their parted 
ranks that Grattan passed to move the emanci- 
pation of his country. Never had a great orator 
a nobler or a more pleasing task. It was to pro- 
claim that the strife of six centuries had termi- 
nated ; that the cause for which so much blood 
had been shed, and so much genius expended in 
vain, had at last triumphed; and that a new era 
had dawned upon Ireland. Doubtless on that 
day many minds reverted to the long night of op- 
pression and crime through which Ireland had 
struggled towards that conception which had been 
as the pillar of fire on her path. But now at last 
the promised land seemed reached. The dream 
of Swift and of Molyneux was realized. The 
blessings of independence were reconciled with 
the blessings of connection ; and in an emanci- 
pated Parliament the patriot saw the guarantee 
of the future prosperity of his country and the 
Shekinah of liberty in the land. It was impos- 
sible, indeed, not to perceive that there was still 
much to be done — disqualifications to be re- 
moved, anomalies to be rectified, corruption to be 
overcome ; but Grattan at least firmly believed 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 199 

that Ireland possessed the vital force necessary 
for all this, that the progress of a healthy public 
opinion would regenerate and reform the Irish 
Parliament as it regenerated and reformed the 
Parliament of England ; and that every year the 
sense of independence would quicken the sym- 
pathy between the people and their representa- 
tives. It was, indeed, a noble triumph, and the 
orator was worthy of the cause. In a few glowing 
sentences he painted the dreary struggle that had 
passed, the magnitude of the victory that had 
.been achieved, and the grandeur of the prospects 
that were unfolding. 'I am now,' he exclaimed, 
' to address a free people. Ages have passed 
away, and this is the first moment in which you 
could be distinguished by that appellation. I 
have spoken on the subject of your liberty so 
often that I have nothing to add, and have only to 
admire by what heaven-directed steps you have 
proceeded until the whole faculty of the nation is 
braced up to the act of her own deliverance. I 
found Ireland on her knees ; I watched over her 
with paternal solicitude ; I have traced her pro- 
gress frorn injuries to arms, and from arms to 
liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your 
genius has prevailed ! Ireland is now a nation ! 
In that character I hail her; and, bowing in her 
august presence, I say, Esto perpetual' 

In England the change in the position of the 
Irish Parliament obtained the approval of all en- 



200 GLADSTONE— FARNELL. 

lightened men. Edmund Burke wrote to Lord 
Charleinont : " I am convinced that no reluctant 
tie can be a strong one ; I believe that a natural, 
cheerful alliance will be a far more secure link of 
connection than any principle of subordination 
borne with grudging and discontent." Fox and 
Grey, the leaders of the English Whig party, were 
equally delighted with the change. " I would 
have the Irish government," said Fox in 1797, 
" regulated by Irish voters and Irish prejudices, 
and I am convinced that the more she is under 
Irish government the more she will be bound to 
English interests." 

The independence of the Irish Parliament was 
now achieved, and, following quickly in its wake, 
came the attainment of objects which had been 
striven for long and vainly while that body was 
under the thumb of an alien administration. Par- 
liament met yearly, and not at fluctuating inter- 
vals as before. The independence of the judicial 
bench was secured by an act providing that their 
commissions should be valid during- good beha- 
vior, their salaries ascertained and established, 
and their removal dependent on an address from 
both Houses. The right of the Commons to 
originate money bills, as in England, was estab- 
lished, as was also their right to assign how money 
voted by them should be expended. 

But there were some points on which Grattan 
appealed for further reform. The pension list, as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 201 

has been seen, was one of the most potent agen- 
cies in the hands of the Crown for the corruption 
of members. The enormity of the grievance is 
sufficiently shown by the fact that the money 
spent in pensions in Ireland was not merely rela- 
tively, but absolutely, greater than was expended 
for that purpose in England ; that the pension 
list trebled in the first thirty years of George III. ; 
and that in 1793 it amounted to no less than 
,£124,000. As a proof of the number of persons 
to whom pensions were given, it may be men- 
tioned that on the Irish Pension List there were 
the names of the mistresses of George I., of the 
Queen Dowager of Prussia, sister of George II., 
and of the Sardinian Ambassador who negotiated 
the peace of Paris. The efforts of Grattan to 
reduce this scandalous list were repeated over 
and over again. He brought forward the subject 
in 1785 and in 1 791 , but the government always 
opposed him, and he was as often defeated. 

The legislation of the Irish Parliament upon 
one question, however, proceeded with rapidity 
and with extraordinary liberality. The reader is 
already ^ware that the Irish Parliament at this 
time consisted exclusively of Irish Protestants and 
Irish landlords, but that Parliament had scarcely 
received its independence when it proceeded to 
carry out the great principles which had been 
laid down by the Protestant volunteers' meeting 
in the Protestant Church of Dungannon. The 

12 



202 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

toleration, indeed, of the Irish Parliament began 
at a date even anterior to its independence. In 
1768 a Bill had been passed without a division 
against the Penal Code, and its rejection was due 
to the English Parliament. In 1774-78 and 1782, 
and finally in 1792, other relief Bills were also 
enacted, and by this time some of the worst griev- 
ances of the Irish Catholics were^ removed. But 
there were other grievances which still remained, 
and which were of the very utmost importance. 
The Irish Catholic had not a right to vote for a 
member of Parliament or to become a member 
of Parliament, and he had no place in the higher 
ranks of the law or the army. Under the influ- 
ence of a native legislature the feeling against the 
Catholics was now rapidly passing away; indeed, 
it had begun to disappear at even an earlier date. 
Lecky quotes the following passage from the 
preface to Molyneux's " Case of Ireland," which 
proves that as far back as 1770 religious bigotry 
was already disappearing: 

" The rigor of Popish bigotry is softening very 
fast ; the Protestants are losing all bitter remem- 
brance of those evils which their ancestors suf- 
fered, and the two sects are insensibly gliding into 
the same common interests. The Protestants, 
through apprehensions from the superior numbers 
of the Catholics, were eager to secure themselves 
in the powerful protection of an English Minister, 
and to gain this were ready to comply with his 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 203 

most exorbitant demands ; the Catholics were 
alike willing to embarrass the Protestants as their 
natural foes ; but awakening from this delusion, 
they begin to condemn their past follies, reflect 
with shame on having so long played the game 
of an artful enemy, and are convinced that with- 
out unanimity they never can obtain such con- 
sideration as may entitle them to demand, with 
any prospect of success, the just and common 
rights of mankind. Religious bigotry is losing 
its force everywhere. Commercial and not re- 
ligious interests are the objects of almost every 
nation in Europe." 

But in a moment the Irish Parliament was in 
full possession of its powers. The car of progress 
proceeded with unexampled rapidity. In 1793 a 
bill was introduced the object of which was to 
allow the Catholics to vote. This act was per- 
haps the most noteworthy ever carried by the 
native legislature. 

The independent native Legislature proceeded 
to justify its existence in other respects also. 
During its existence the country had its first 
gleam of prosperity. On this point evidence is 
abounding and incontestable. The testimony 
comes as emphatically from the men who de- 
stroyed the Legislature as from those who de- 
fended it. The increase of Ireland's prosperity 
under the native Legislature was by a curious 
reversal of facts and ideas one of the arguments 



204 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

by which Pitt justified the extinction of Parlia- 
ment. "As Ireland," he said, " was so prosperous 
under her own Parliament, we can calculate that 
the amount of that prosperity will be trebled by a 
British Legislature." Pitt then went on to quote 
a speech of Mr. Foster, a member of the Irish 
Legislature in 1785, in these words: "The ex- 
portation of Irish produce to England amounts to 
two millions and a half annually, and the exporta- 
tion of British produce to Ireland amounts to one 
million." Quoting Foster again, he said, " Britain 
imports annually ,£2,500,000 of our products, all, 
or very nearly all, duty free, and we import 
almost a million of hers, and raise a revenue on 
every article of it." Pitt went on to say, " But 
how stands the case now (1799) ? The trade at 
this time is infinitely more advantageous to Ire- 
land. It will be proved from the documents I 
hold in my hand, as far as relates to the mere in- 
terchange of manufactures, that the manufactures 
exported to Ireland from Great Britain in 1797 
very little exceeded one million sterling (the arti- 
cles of produce amount to nearly the same sum), 
whilst Great Britain, on the other hand, imported 
from Ireland to the amount of more than three 
millions in the manufacture of linen and linen 
yarn, and between two and three millions in pro- 
visions and cattle, besides corn and other articles 
of produce." Fitzgibbon, Lord Clare, was Pitt's 
most unscrupulous and ablest instrument in car- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 205 

rying the Union ; yet in 1 798 Lord Clare said : 
" There is not a nation on the face of the habita- 
ble globe which has advanced in cultivation, in 
agriculture, in manufactures, with the same ra- 
pidity, in the same period, as Ireland," namely, 
between 1782 and 1798. In this opinion Lord 
Grey, Lord Plunket, and many others fully concur. 
The question will at once occur to the mind of 
the American reader why it was that an institution 
that was thus daily proving its fitness for the 
country ever ceased to exist. The explanation is 
easily found in the constitution of the Parliament, 
and partly also in the nature of the settlement 
made in 1 782. First, as to the constitution of the 
Parliament; attention has already been called to 
the character of both Houses of that body. 
Grattan and the other patriot leaders saw the 
immense danger there was to the continuance of 
Ireland's independence if this state of things was 
allowed to continue. Session after session, time 
after time, Grattan and others brought in Bills, 
the object of which was to procure the reform of 
Parliament, both in its own constitution and in 
the electorate. In speech after speech the cor- 
ruptions of the existing system were pointed out ; 
and attention was especially called to the system 
by which at one stroke both the House of Lords 
and the House of Commons were corrupted. 
The House of Lords was corrupted by the admis- 
sion to its ranks of men who had bought their 



206 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

peerages, and the House of Commons was at the 
same time corrupted by the sale to the govern- 
ment of the seats which belonged to the men who 
had bought the peerages. " Will any man," says 
Flood, " say that the Constitution is perfect when 
he knows that the honor of the peerage may be 
obtained by any ruffian who possesses borough 
interest?" Grattan accuses the Minister of the 
Crown of having " introduced a trade or com- 
merce, or, rather, brokerage of honors, and thus 
establishing in the money arising from that sale a 
fund for corrupting representation." 

But these remonstrances proved in vain ; and 
the government, times out of number, refused to 
make any change of a really practicable character 
in the composition and constitution of either House 
of Parliament, and the House of Commons con- 
tinued to consist for the most part of placemen 
and pensioners and the creatures of the propri- 
etors of rotten boroughs, openly and flagrantly 
ready for sale. 

The attempts to reform the Parliament by the 
admission of Catholics thereto met with an equal 
fate. At one time, however, it seemed as if this 
question were about to be decided. In 1794 
Lord Westmoreland— a Lord Lieutenant who was 
unfavorable to Catholic claims— was succeeded by 
Lord Fitzwilliam, who was equally known as a 
strong advocate of those claims. Lord Fitzwil- 
liam was a man of great importance in those days 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 207 

He was the most prominent member of the Whig 
party. He was a friend of Grattan's, and his 
views on Catholic emancipation had been over 
and over again pronounced. When he landed in 
1 794 accordingly he was received everywhere 
with enthusiasm. Petitions in favor of Catholic 
emancipation were sent in not merely by the 
Catholics but also by the Protestants. And Lord 
Fitzwilliam himself was able to speak to the King 
of " the universal approbation with which the 
emancipation of the Catholics was received on the 
part of his Protestant subjects." 

Ireland at the moment became as one man, 
religious bigotry was forgotten, loyalty was 
universal. Within the last few weeks the change 
that Lord Fitzwilliam's viceroyalty made was 
brought into relief by a significant episode. 
Lord Aberdeen, a popular London viceroy of the 
Queen, and bearer of another message of peace, 
visited Kenmare, in the month of May, 1886. He 
was received by a popular band of music, which 
played " God save the Queen." It was the first 
time the National Anthem of England had been 
played in this town since 1795 ; and then in honor 
of a visit from Lord Fitzwilliam, but he now was 
recalled, and the hopes of Ireland were blasted. 

"We have," said Grattan, " no Irish Cabinet. 
Individuals may deprecate, may dissuade, but 
they cannot enforce their principles ; there is no 
embodied authority in Ireland. Again, your 



208 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Government constantly fluctuates ; your viceroys 
change every day ; men of different parties and 
different principles, faithful to private engage- 
ments but not bound to any uniform public sys- 
tem. Again, you have no decided responsibility 
in Ireland; the objects of your inquest might not 
be easily found ; in short, you have in this country 
the misfortune of a double administration, a 
double importunity — a fluctuating government, 
and a fugacious responsibility." Some years 
later Mr. Grattan says, "Are the Ministers of 
Ireland fonder of the people of this country than 
the Ministers*of the sister country are of Great 
Britain ? Are they not often aliens in affection 
as well as birth, disposed to dispute your rights, 
censure your proceedings, and to boast that you 
cannot punish them, and that, therefore, they do 
not fear you ? Are they not proud to humble 
you and ambitious to corrupt you ? " 

In 1798 the rebellion which had been smoul- 
dering throughout the country at last broke forth. 
Though Catholics took mainly the chief part in 
the insurrection it was originally started by a 
body of Protestants in Belfast, who formed a 
society known as the " United Irishmen." The 
testimony is overwhelming that the United Irish- 
men contemplated at first only" constitutional 
methods of action ; but, as they themselves after- 
wards stated, their despair of obtaining reform 
through the continued opposition of the govern- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 209 

ment to Grattan's proposals drove them into 
rebellion. The rebellion was crushed by the 
most terrible cruelty. One of its worst effects 
was to revive the religious passions between dif- 
ferent sections of Irishmen by which the benefi- 
cent policy of the Irish party and the patriot 
leaders was obliterated. Pitt, and Lord Cas- 
tlereagh, his agent in Ireland, aggravated the 
cruelties by giving every form of encouragement 
to the persons mainly occupied in carrying out 
his cruelties. 

"The Protestants," says Lecky, "passed into 
that condition of terrified ferocity to which ruling 
races are always liable when they find themselves 
a small minority in the midst of a fierce re- 
bellion." 'The minds of the people,' wrote Lord 
Cornwallis, after the suppression of the revolt, 
'are now in such a state that nothing but blood 
will satisfy them.' ' Even at my table, where you 
will suppose I do all I can to prevent it, the con- 
versation always turns on hanging, shooting, 
burning and so forth ; and if a priest has been 
put to death the greatest joy is expressed by the 
whole company.' " 

The native Irish, maddened by these cruelties, 
replied with cruelties of great if not equal fe- 
rocity. At last the rebellion of 1798 was put 
down, and the British authorities now thought the 
time had come for proposing the Act of Union. 
On the destruction of the Irish Legislature Pitt 



210 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

had been resolved from an early date. He had 
sent to Ireland as a means of carrying out this 
policy Lord Castlereagh, an Irishman by birth, 
but English in all his sympathies and aims. This 
remarkable man, who played so sinister a part 
in Irish and afterwards in English history, had 
the qualities exactly suitable for carrying out an 
enterprise of this kind. He had cool courage 
and an utter absence of either shame or of 
scruple. While Lord Cornwallis, the Lord Lieu- 
tenant at the time, spoke, as will be seen, with 
loathing of the work at which he was employed, 
Lord Castlereagh pursued it with perfect equa- 
nimity, and sometimes described it as though he 
gloried in the shame. Preparations went on for 
years to make the Parliament ready for the final 
blow, and the patriots of the time over and over 
again saw how the work of corruption was pro- 
ceeding, and the hour of destruction drawing 
nigh. 

"We are no longer," writes Dr. Browne, one 
of the members for Trinity College, "attacked 
by the stern violence of prerogative, but a new 
and more dangerous foe has arisen — a corrupt 
and all-subduing influence which, with a silent but 
resistless course, has overwhelmed the land and 
borne down every barrier of liberty and virtue." 
"Then," says Sir L. Parsons, "those acquisitions 
in 1782, which the people thought would have 
brought good government, have brought bad, and, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 211 

why? Because it has been the object of the 
English Ministers ever since to countervail what 
was obtained at that period, and substitute a 
surreptitious and clandestine influence for that 
open power which the English Legislature was 
then obliged to relinquish." It was in the year 
1 799 that the Union was proposed for the first 
time. The government put forward every means 
they could employ for the purpose of carrying it. 
But it was, nevertheless, opposed by all the in- 
tellect and all the conscience of Ireland. " It is 
scarcely an exaggeration to say," observes Lecky, 
" that the proposal to make the Union provoked 
the whole of the unbribed intellect of Ireland to 
oppose it." The result was that the bill was re- 
jected by 109 to 104 votes. 

Castlereagh, however, was a man of persistent 
purpose, and he now set himself to work to adopt 
more certain means of carrying out his resolve. 
He employed a mixture of force and fraud. Mar- 
tial law was proclaimed all over the country, and 
wherever there was any attempt to procure an 
open expression of public feeling, violence was 
either threatened or employed against it. The 
people of Dublin had signified their joy at the 
rejection of the government measure, and they 
were attacked without notice by a body of soldiers 
and some people were shot down. A body of 
the gentry had gathered together in Kings 
county for the purpose of declaring their opinions 



212 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

upon the proposed legislation ; they had no sooner 
assembled than a column of troops under Major 
Rogers were seen to be advancing, armed with 
four cannon; by which it was made perfectly 
clear that if the meeting were persevered with the 
building would have been destroyed. Major 
Rogers was remonstrated with ; but his answer 
was, that but for one word from the sheriff he 
might blow them all to atoms. And in several 
other parts of that county — according to Sir Jonah 
Barrington, a well-known contemporary chron- 
icler — people were restrained from expressing 
their opinions by the dread of grapeshot. Steps 
were taken against all those encouraging public 
opinion against the Union, or who did anything 
to promote the national protest. The Marquis of 
Downshire sent out a circular urging petitions 
against the Union ; and he was dismissed from 
the lord-lieutenancy of his county and his name 
was erased from the list of privy councillors. In 
the same way in the House of Commons all men 
who held office and who refused to vote for the 
destruction of the country's liberties were dis- 
missed. Among the persons who thus gave hon- 
orable testimony to the consistency of their prin- 
ciples was Sir John Parnell, the ancestor of the 
present leader of the Irish people, who had been 
Chancellor of the Exchequer for seventeen years. 
Petitions at the same time were sent over the 
whole country to gather signatures in favor of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 213 

Union ; and so eager was Castlereagh for even 
the appearance of popular adhesion to his de- 
mand that felons in jail were offered their pardon 
on condition of attaching their names. Never- 
theless, when the signatures came to be counted 
up, 700,000 protested against the Union ; and 
only 3,000 were found to demand it. 

These were but a small portion of the plans 
adopted to carry the Union on the second at- 
tempt. Castlereagh, having made up his mind 
that corruption was the best of all means for gain- 
ing votes, resorted to this means in the most open 
manner. The seats in the House of Commons, 
owing to the system of bribery, had become as 
valuable as any other article of merchandise, 
and Castlereagh determined to take the same 
view of the question as the owners themselves. 
Accordingly, he announced three plans on the 
part of the government, which together made as 
complete a system of corruption as perhaps ever 
prevailed in the history of any country. 

In brief, then, Lord Castlereagh boldly an- 
nounced his intention to turn the scale by bribes 
to all who would accept them, under the name of 
compensation for the loss of patronage and interest. 
He publicly declared, first, that noblemen who re- 
turned Union members to Parliament should be 
paid, in cash, ,£15,000 for every member so re- 
turned; secondly, that every member who had 
purchased a seat in Parliament should have his 



214 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

purchase-money repaid to him out of the treasury 
of Ireland ; thirdly, that all members of Parlia- 
ment, or others, who were losers by the Union 
should be fully recompensed for their losses, and 
that ^1,500,000 should be devoted to this ser- 
vice. In other words, all who should affection- 
ately support his measure were, under some 
pretext or other, to share in this " bank of cor- 
ruption." 

Meantime seats had been vacated by men who 
had obtained good sums fordoing so ; and by the 
time that Parliament met again Lord Castlereagh 
could feel sure that the mine was laid and that it 
only required the fuse to burst up the Parliamen- 
tary edifice. 

Another of his method's was to hold out vague 
promises to the Catholics and their bishops, that 
when the Irish Parliament was destroyed Irish 
Catholic claims would obtain a hearing from the 
Imperial Parliament; and in this way undoubtedly 
a few of the Catholic leaders were lulled into 
security. 

The Irish Parliament was opened January 15, 
1800. Lord Castlereagh thought it good tactics 
to keep all mention of the Union out of the King's 
speech. He wanted more clearly to prospect his 
ground ; and he also wanted the poison of corrup- 
tion to have a further chance of working. When 
an army is demoralized, small desertions lead to 
general panic. Accordingly Lord Castlereagh 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 215 

put up Viscount Loftus to move the address in 
reply to the speech from the throne. Lord Loftus 
was a man of grotesque vacuity of mind, and was 
now known by an uncomplimentary nickname; 
but there was wisdom nevertheless in putting him 
into a prominent place. He was the son of the 
Marquis of Ely, who had three rotten boroughs, 
and his speech in favor of the policy of the gov- 
ernment showed that the Marquis, his father, 
would receive his bribe of ,£45,000. Such a 
splendid award for perfidy was sure to have its 
good effect on weak and wavering minds. Dr. 
Browne, one of the members for the University 
of Dublin, and, we regret to say, an American by 
birth, served a similar purpose. He had voted 
against the Union the previous session. He de- 
clared that he had now become more inclined to 
the Union from " intermediate circumstances." 
The intermediate circumstances were that he had 
been promised the place of Prime Serjeant for his 
vote. The patriot party insisted on raising the 
question of the Union on the address, and a very 
picturesque incident occurred in the course of the 
debate. Mr. Grattan had retired in disgust and 
despair from Parliament shortly before the rebel- 
lion broke out ; he was in bad health, and had 
sought recovery in change of air and scene. His 
friends induced him to accept a seat for the 
borough of Wicklow. The return of the writ was 
delayed as long as possible ; but by a series of 



216 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

stratagems, including the employment of a num- 
ber of swift horses, the return reached Dublin at 
5 o'clock in the morning. The proper officer was 
compelled to get out of bed in order to present 
the document to Parliament. The House at that 
moment was in warm debate on the amendment 
denouncingtheproposeddestructionof the Houses 
of Parliament. A whisper, writes Mitchell, ran 
through every party that Mr. Grattan was elected, 
and would immediately take his seat. The Min- 
isterialists smiled with incredulous derision, and 
the Opposition thought the news too good to be 
true. 

Mr. Egan was speaking strongly against the 
measure, when Mr. George Ponsonby and Mr. 
Arthur Moore (afterwards Judge of the Common 
Pleas) walked out, and immediately returned lead- 
ing, or rather helping, Mr. Grattan, in a state of 
total feebleness and debility. The effect was 
electric. Mr. Grattan's illness and deep chagrin 
had reduced a form, never symmetrical, and a 
visage at all times thin, nearly to the appearance 
of a spectre. As he feebly tottered into the 
House every member simultaneously rose from 
his seat. He moved slowly to the table ; his lan- 
guid countenance seemed to revive as he took 
those oaths that restored him to his pre-eminent 
station ; smiles of inward satisfaction obviously 
illuminated his features, and reanimation and en- 
ergy seemed to kindle by the labor of his mind. 



HfF. GREA1 IRISH STRUGGLE. 217 

The House was silent. Mr. Egan did not resume 
his speech. Mr. Grattan, almost breathless, at- 
tempted to rise, but found himself unable at first 
to stand, and asked permission to address the 
House from his seat. Never was a finer illustra- 
tion of the sovereignty of mind over matter 
Grattan spoke two hours with all his usual velie* 
mence and fire against the Union, and in favor of 
the amendment of Sir Lawrence Parsons. The 
Treasury Bench was at first disquieted, then be- 
came savage ; and it was resolved to bully or to 
kill Mr. Grattan. 

But these attempts did not succeed. At 10 
o'clock in the morning the division was taken, 
when 96 voted for the amendment of Sir Law- 
rence Parsons, protesting against the Union ; and 
138 against. Thus at the very first fight Castle- 
reagh had a majority of 42. This greatly encour- 
aged the Unionists. But still Castlereagh thought 
that some time would be necessary before the 
House could be made quite ready for the accept- 
ance of his proposal. 

It was not till the 15th of February that he 
brought the proposed measure before the Parlia- 
ment. Debates, eloquent and fierce, took place 
on his proposals. Grattan was so grossly in- 
sulted by one of the officials of Castlereagh that 
he declared the government had resolved to 
" pistol him off," and at once accepted a challenge 
and fought with Corry, his assailant. All this 

13 



218 GLADSTONE— PARNELL 

time the secret agents of Castlereagh were busy 
in promising peerages, pensions, and bribes; and 
military were constantly drawn up around the old 
House in College Green to terrorize the people 
against any expression of popular discontent. 

Nobody has more tersely or eloquently de- 
scribed the means by which the Union was passed 
than Mr. Gladstone. Speaking at Liverpool on 
June 29th, 1886, he said: 

"Ah, gentlemen, when 1 opened this question 
in the House of Commons on the 8th of April I 
said very little about the Act of Union — for two 
reasons : first of all, because looking at the facts, 
whatever that act may have been in its beginning, 
I do not think that it could safely or wisely be 
blotted out of the Statute Book, and for another 
reason, that I did not wish gratuitously to expose 
to the world the shame of my country. But this 
I must tell you, if we are compelled to go into it 
— the position against us, the resolute banding of 
the great and the rich and the noble, and I know 
not who, against the true genuine sense of the 
people, compels us to unveil the truth, and I tell 
you this, that so far as I can judge, and so far as 
my knowledge goes, I grieve to say in the pres- 
ence of distinguished Irishmen that I know of no 
blacker or fouler transaction in the history of man 
than the making of the Union. It is not possible 
to tell you fully, but in a few words I give you 
some idea of what I mean. ' Fraud is bad, and 



"HE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 219 

force— violence as against rights—is bad, but if 
there is one thing more detestable than another, 
it is the careful, artful combination of the two. 
The carrying of the Irish Union was nothing in 
the world but a combination of force and fraud 
applied in the basest manner to the attainment of 
an end which all Ireland — for the exceptions might 
be counted on your fingers— detested, Protestants 
even more than Roman Catholics. In the Irish 
Parliament there were 300 seats, and out of these 
there were 116 placemen and pensioners. The 
government of Mr. Pitt rewarded with places 
which did not vacate the seat, as they do in this 
country if I remember aright, those who voted for 
them, and took away the pensions of those who 
were disposed to vote against them. Notwith- 
standing that state of things, in 1 797, in the month 
of June, the proposal of union was rejected in the 
Irish Parliament. The Irish Parliament, in 1795, 
under Lord Fitzwilliam, had been gallantly and 
patriotically exercised in amending the condition 
of the country. The monopolists of the Beres- 
ford and other families made Mr. Pitt recall Lord 
Fitzwilliam, and that moment it was that the rev- 
olutionary action began among the Roman Cath- 
olics of Ireland ; from that moment the word ' sep- 
aration,' never dreamt of before, by degrees 
insinuated itself in their councils ; an uneasy state 
of things prevailed, undoubted disaffection was 
produced, and it could not but be produced by 



220 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

abominable misgovernment. So produced, it was 
the excuse for all that followed. Inside the walls 
of Parliament the terror of withdrawing from Par- 
liament and wholesale bribery in the purchase of 
nomination boroughs were carried on to such an 
extent as to turn the scale. Outside Parliament 
martial law and the severest restrictions prevented 
the people from expressing their views and senti- 
ments on the Union. That the detestable union 
of fraud and force might be consummated the 
bribe was held out to the Roman Catholic bishops 
and clergy, in the hope of at any rate slackening 
their opposition, that if only they would consent 
to the Union it should be followed by full admis- 
sion to civil privileges and by endowments, which 
would at any rate have equalized the monstrous 
anomaly of the existence of the Irish Church. 
That was the state of things by which — by the use 
of all those powers that this great and strong 
country could bring into exercise through its 
command over the executive against the weak- 
ness of Ireland — by that means they got together 
a sufficient number of people — with 1 1 6 placemen 
and pensioners out of 300 persons, with a large 
number of borough proprietors bought at the cost 
of a million and a half of money — at last they suc- 
ceeded in getting a majority of between 42 and 45 
to pass the Union. I have heard of more bloody 
proceedings — the massacre of St. Bartholomew 
was a more cruel proceeding — but a more base 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 2 2l 

proceeding, a more vile proceeding, is not re- 
corded in my judgment upon the page of history 
than the process by which the Tory government 
of that period brought about the union with Ire- 
land in the teeth and in despite of the protest of 
every Liberal statesman from one end of the 
country to the other." 

When the question came before the English 
Parliament the Union was opposed by Grey, after- 
ward Lord Grey, Sheridan, Lord Holland, and all 
the other great leaders of the Whig party. But 
Pitt succeeded in carrying all his proposals 
through. The question finally came before the 
Irish Parliament in the shape of a bill for the 
Legislative Union. Again Grattan, Plunkett, 
Saurin, afterward Attorney-General under the 
British Crown; Bushe, afterward a Chief-Justice, 
and all the other men of genius in the Irish Par- 
liament, protested against the destruction of the 
Irish government. Grattan's final speech sounds 
prophetic at the present hour. "The constitu- 
tion," he said, "may for a time be lost, but the 
character of the people cannot be lost. The Min- 
isters of the Crown may perhaps at length find 
out that it is not so easy to put down forever an 
ancient and respectable nation by abilities, how- 
ever great, or by corruption, however irresistible. 
Liberty may repair her golden beams, and with 
redoubled heat animate the country. The cry of 
loyalty will not long continue against the princi- 



222 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

pies of liberty. Loyalty is a noble, a judicious, 
and a capacious principle, but in these countries 
loyalty distinct from liberty is corruption, not loy- 
alty. The cry of the connection will not in the 
end avail against the principles of liberty. Con- 
nection is a wise and a profound policy, but con- 
nection without an Irish Parliament is connection 
without its own principle, without analogy of con- 
dition, without the pride of honor that should 
attend it — is innovation, is peril, is subjugation — 
not connection. . . . Identification is a solid and 
imperial maxim, necessary for the preservation of 
freedom, necessary for that of empire ; but with- 
out union of hearts, with a separate government 
and without a separate Parliament, identification 
is extinction, is dishonor, is conquest — not identi- 
fication. Yet I do not give up my country. I see 
her in a swoon, but she is not dead. Though in 
her tomb she lies helpless and motionless, still 
there is on her lips a spirit of life, and on her 
cheek a glow of beauty : 

" ' Thou f.rt not conquered : beauty's ensign yet 
- Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, 
And death's pale flag is not advanced there ' 

While a plank of the vessel stands together, I 
will not leave her. Let the courtier present his 
flimsy sail, and carry the light bark of his faith 
with every new breath of wind; I will remain an- 
chored here with fidelity to the fortunes of my 
country, faithful to her freedom, faithful to her 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 223 

fall." These were the last words of Grattan in 
the Irish Parliament. 

On the 7th of June the Union bill was to be 
read for the third time. Most of the anti-Union- 
ists left the House so as not to be present at the 
destruction of the nation. "The day of extin- 
guishing the liberties of Ireland had now arrived," 
writes Sir Jonah Barrington, a contemporary 
chronicler, "and the sun took his last view of in- 
dependent Ireland ; he rose no more over a proud 
and prosperous nation. She was now condemned 
by the British Minister to renounce her rank 
amongst the states of Europe ; she was sentenced 
to cancel her constitution, to disband her Com- 
mons, and to disfranchise her nobility, to proclaim 
her incapacity, and register her corruption in the 
records of the Empire. The Commons House of 
Parliament on the last evening afforded the most 
melancholy example of a fine, independent peo- 
ple, betrayed, divided, sold, and, as a State, anni- 
hilated. British clerks and officers were smug- 
gled into her Parliament to vote away the consti- 
tution of a country to which they were strano-ers, 
and in which they had neither interest nor con- 
nection. They were employed to cancel the 
royal charter of the Irish nation, guaranteed by 
die British government, sanctioned by the British 
Legislature, and unequivocally confirmed by the 
words, the signature, and the great seal of their 
monarch. 



224 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" The situation of the Speaker on that night was 
of the most distressing nature. A sincere and 
ardent enemy of the measure, he headed its op- 
ponents ; he resisted it with all the power of his 
mind, the resources of his experience, his influence, 
and his eloquence. 

" It was, however, through his voice that it was 
to be proclaimed and consummated. His only 
alternative (resignation) would have been un- 
availing, and could have added nothing to his 
character. His expressive countenance bespoke 
the inquietude of his feeling ; solicitude was per- 
ceptible in every glance, and his embarrassment 
was obvious in every word he uttered. 

" The galleries were full; but the change was 
lamentable. They were no longer crowded with 
those who had been accustomed to witness the 
eloquence and to animate the debates of that de- 
voted assembly. A monotonous and melancholy 
murmur ran through the benches; scarcely a 
word was exchanged amongst the members. 
Nobody seemed at ease ; no cheerfulness was ap- 
parent, and the ordinary business for a short time 
proceeded in the usual manner. 

"At length the expected moment arrived. The 
order of the day — for the third reading of the bill 
for a ' Legislative Union between Great Britain 
and Ireland ' — was moved by Lord Castlereagh. 
Unvaried, tame, cold-blooded — the words seemed 
frozen as they issued from his lips ; and, as if a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 225 

simple citizen of the world, he seemed to have no 
sensation on the subject. 

"The Speaker, Mr. Foster, who was one of the 
most vehement opponents of the Union from first 
to last, would have risen and left the House with 
his friends, if he could. But this would have 
availed nothing. With grave dignity he presided 
over ' the last agony of the expiring Parliament.' 
He held up the bill for a moment in silence, then 
asked the usual question, to which the response, 
'Aye' was languid, but unmistakable. Another 
momentary pause ensued. Again his lips seemed 
to decline their office. At length, with an eye 
averted from the object which he hated, he pro- 
claimed, with a subdued voice, 'The ayes have it! 
For an instant he stood statue-like ; then, indig- 
nantly and in disgust, flung the bill upon the 
table, and sunk into his chair with an exhausted 
spirit." 

The bill passed through the House of Lords in 
spite of protests from some of its ablest members. 
On the 1st of August the royal assent was given, 
and the new act was to take effect from January 
i st, 1801. So ended Ireland's legislative inde- 
pendence. The following pages are chiefly cov- 
ered with the efforts to procure its restoration. 



CHAPTER VI. 

AFTER THE UNION. 

THE destruction of the Irish Parliament was 
accompanied by several acts which aggra- 
vated the misfortune. With the destruction of 
Parliamentary representation, and, above all, in 
the distribution of debt, Ireland was scandalously 
treated. 

The strength of the Irish representation in the 
British Parliament was settled by Lord Castle- 
reagh in a most arbitrary, not to say contradic- 
tory, manner. He first publicly demonstrated 
that the number of Irish representatives entitled 
to sit in the British Parliament was 108, and sub- 
sequently, for no specified reason, subtracted 
what he no doubt looked upon as the superfluous 
eight and decided the proper number was the 
round ioo. He arrived at the conclusion that 
108 was the proper number thus: In the relative 
population of the two countries, taking it that 
Great Britain had 558, that for the proportionate 
population of Ireland she was entitled to 202 
representatives, for exports 100, for imports 93, 
for revenue 39, making a total of 434, and taking 
226 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 227 

the mean of these quantities it makes 108*^. 
But Castlereagh omitted from his calculations all 
mention of the Irish rental, an admitted factor in 
Irish questions in England. If rental had been 
taken into account, the Irish representation should 
have been i6gj4> In 1821 the question was again 
raised, O'Connell showed that Ireland had seven 
millions to England's twelve millions of popula- 
tion ; and that on this basis of population Ireland 
should have 291 members; and that taking rev- 
enue and population as joint basis, Ireland should 
have 176 members. As a matter of fact, she 
never since the Union had more than 105. 

The scheme by which Ireland was cheated in 
the question of debts is well summarized in the 
following extracts from Mitchell's " History of 
Ireland:" 

"In 18 1 6 was passed the act for consolidating 
the British and Irish Exchequers — it is the 56th 
George III., cap. 98. It became operative on the 
1st January, 181 7. 

" The meaning of this consolidation was — 
charging Ireland with the whole debt of England, 
pre-union and post-union ; and in like manner 
charging England with the whole Irish debt. 

" Now, the enormous English national debt, 
both before and after the Union, was contracted 
for purposes which Ireland had not only no in- 
terest in promoting, but a direct and vital interest 
in contravening and resisting ; that is, it had been 



228 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

contracted to crush American and French liberty, 
and to destroy those very powers which were the 
natural allies of Ireland. 

" But this is not all. We have next to see the 
proportions which the two debts bore to each 
other. It will be remembered that, by the terms 
of the so-called 'Union,' 

"I. Ireland was to be protected from any liabil- 
ity on account of the British national debt con- 
tracted prior to the Union. 

" II. The separate debt of each country being 
first provided for by a separate charge, Ireland 
was then to contribute two-seventeenths towards 
the joint or common expenditure of the United 
Kingdom for twenty years ; after which her con- 
tribution was to be made proportionate to her 
ability, as ascertained at stated periods of revision 
by certain tests specified in the act. 

" III. Ireland was not only promised that she 
never should have any concern with the then ex- 
isting British debt, but she was also assured that 
her taxation should not be raised to the standard 
of Great Britain until the following conditions 
should occur : 

" i. That the two debts should come to bear to 

each other the proportion of fifteen parts for 

Great Britain to two parts for Ireland ; and, 
" 2. That the respective circumstances of the 

two countries should admit of uniform 

taxation. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 229 

"It must be further borne in mind that, pre- 
vious to the Union, the national debt of Ireland 
was a mere trifle. It had been enormously in- 
creased by charging to Ireland's special account, 
first, the expenses of getting up the rebellion ; 
next, the expenses of suppressing it ; and, lastly, 
the expenses of bribing Irish noble lords and 
gentlemen to sell their country at this Union. 
Thus the Irish debt, which before the Union had 
been less than three millions sterling-, was set 
down by the Act of Union at nearly twenty-seven 
millions. 

"On the 20th of June, 1804 (four years after 
the Union had passed), Mr. Foster, Chancellor 
of the Irish Exchequer, observed, that whereas in 
1794 the Irish debt did not exceed two millions 
and a half, it had in 1803 risen to forty-three mil- 
lions ; and that during the current year it was 
increased to nearly fifty-three millions. 

" During the long and costly war against France, 
and the second American war, it happened, by 
some very extraordinary species of book-keeping, 
that while the English debt was not quite doubled, 
the Irish debt was more than quadrupled; as if 
Ireland had twice the interest which England had 
in forcing the Bourbons back upon France, and 
in destroying the commerce of America. 

"Thus, in 18 1 6, when the Consolidation Act 
was passed, the whole funded debt of Ireland was 
found to be ,£130,561,037. By this management 



230 Ct.ADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the Irish debt, which in 1S01 had been to the 
British as one to sixteen and a half, was forced 
up to bear to the British debt the ratio of one 
to seven and a half. This was the proportion re- 
quired by the Act of Union as a condition of sub- 
jecting Ireland to indiscriminate taxation with 
Great Britain. 

Mr. Gladstone sums up admirably in the Liver- 
pool speech already quoted the immediate con- 
sequences of the Union : 

"How have we atoned," he asked, "since the 
Union for what we did to bring- about the Union ? 
Now, mind, I am making my appeal to the honor 
of Englishmen. I want to show to Englishmen 
who have a sense of honor that they have a debt 
of honor that remains to this hour not fully paid. 
The Union was followed by these six conse- 
quences — firstly, broken promises ; secondly, the 
passing of bad laws ; thirdly, the putting down 
of liberty ; fourthly, the withholding from Ireland 
benefits that we took to ourselves ; fifthly, the 
giving to force and to force only what we ought 
to have given to honor and justice ; and, sixthly, 
the removal and postponement of relief to the 
most crying grievances. (Cheers.) I will give 
you the proof in no longer space than that in 
which I have read these words. Broken promises 
— the promises of the Roman Catholics of eman- 
cipation and the promise of endowment. Eman- 
cipation was never given for twenty-nine years. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 231 

It would have been given if the Irish Parliament 
had remained — you would have been given it in 
the time of Lord Fitzwilliam. It was never given 
for twenty-nine years after the Union, but no 
endowment. Well, you will say, and I should 
say, ' for that I cannot be sorry.' (Cheers.) I 
cannot wish that the Roman Catholics should 
have received endowment. But on the other 
hand, it was a base thing to break your promises 
to them. Passing bad laws — yes, slow as it was 
to pass good laws, the English Parliament could 
pass bad laws quick enough. In 1815 it passed 
a law most oppressive to the Irish tenant. It was 
the only law relating to the Irish land of any con- 
sequence that ever received serious attention 
until the year 1870. Restraint of liberty. What 
happened after the Union? In 1800 the people 
met largely in Dublin. Almost all the Roman 
Catholics of wealth and influence in the country, 
and a great deal of the Protestant power, too, 
met in Dublin for the purpose of protesting 
aeainst the Union. Not the slightest heed was 
given to their protest. In 1820 there was a 
county meeting of the shire of Dublin for the 
purpose of paying compliments to George IV. 
The people moved a counter-resolution and this 
counter-resolution complained of the Act of 
Union. The sheriff refused to hear them, re- 
fused to put their motion, left the room, and sent 
in the soldiers to break up a peaceful county 



232 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

meeting. (Shame.) Oh, it is shame, indeed 
Fourthly, they withheld from Ireland what we 
took ourselves. We took the franchise. The 
franchise in Ireland remained a very restricted 
franchise until last year. In England it had been 
largely extended, as you know, by the Acts of 
1867 an d 1868. In England you thoroughly re- 
formed your municipalities, and have true popular 
bodies, but in Ireland the number of them was 
cut down to twelve, and after a battle of six years, 
during which Parliament had to spend the chief 
part of its time upon the work, I think about 
twelve municipalities were constituted in Ireland 
with highly restricted powers. Inequality was 
branded upon Ireland at every step. Education 
was established in this country, denominational 
education, right and left, according as the people 
desired it; but in Ireland denominational educa- 
tion was condemned, and until within the last few 
years it was not possible for any Roman Catholic 
to obtain a degree in Ireland if he had received 
his education in a denominational college. 

"Such is the system of inequality under which 
Ireland was governed. We have given only to 
fear what we ought to have given to justice. I 
refer to the Duke of Wellington, who, in 1821, 
himself said with a manly candor, that the fear 
of civil war and nothing else was the motive for, 
I might almost say, for his coercing the House of 
Lords, certainly for bringing the House of Lords, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 933 

to vote a change which it was well known that 
the large majority of them utterly detested. Well, 
sixthly, we shamefully postponed the relief of 
crying grievances— yes, we shamefully postponed 
it. In 18 1 5 we passed an act to make infinitely 
less independent the position of the Irish tenant. 
Not till 1843 did we inquire into his condition. 
Sir Robert Peel has the honor of having ap- 
pointed the Devon Commission — that Devon 
Commission represented that a large number of 
the population of Ireland were submitting with 
exemplary and marvellous patience — these peo- 
ple whom we are told you cannot possibly trust 
— were submitting with marvellous and unintel- 
ligible patience to a lot more bitter and deplora- 
ble than the lot of any people in the civilized world. 
Sir James Graham in the House of Commons ad- 
mitted that the description applied to three and 
a half millions of the people of Ireland, and 
yet with all that we went on certainly doing a 
great deal of good, improving the legislation of 
this country in a wonderful manner, especially by 
the great struggle of Free Trade, but not till 
1870 was the first effort made— seventy years 
after the Union — to administer in any serious de- 
gree to the wants of the Irish tenant, the Irish 
occupier — that means in fact the wants and ne- 
cessities of the mass of the people of Ireland. 
(Cheers.) I say that that is a deplorable narra- 
tive, it is a narrative which cannot be shaken. I 



234 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

have been treading - upon ground that our an- 
tagonists carefully avoid. It is idle to say that 
we have done some good to Ireland. Yes, we 
have done some good to Ireland by the Land Act 
of 1870 and 1 88 1, and by the Disestablishment 
of the Irish Church we have done some good to 
Ireland, and by the Enlargement of Maynooth 
grants Sir Robert Peel did good to Ireland. 
Yes, and it is the success of these very acts 
alone that the Paper Unionists can claim as 
showing that we have done good to Ireland. 
These very acts are down to the present day 
denounced by the tory party — the Church Act as 
sacrilege, the Land Act as confiscation. (Cheers.) 
I humbly say it is time that we should bethink 
ourselves of this question of honor and see how 
the matter stands, and set very seriously about 
the duty, the sacred duty, the indispensable and 
overpowering duty of effacing from history, if 
efface them we can, these terrible stains which the 
acts of England have left upon the fame of 
England, and which constitute the debt of honor 
to Ireland that it is high time to consider and to 
pay." 

We have already spoken of the first charge 
of Mr. Gladstone against the Union, that of 
broken promises with reference to Catholic 
emancipation. The second charge is that of 
making bad laws, which for the most part were ap- 
plied to the occupation of land. The new Parlia- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 235 

ment had scarcely been in existence twenty years 
when already there had been passed a whole 
new code of laws, the main purpose of which 
was to enable landlords to get rid of their ten- 
ants at the very earliest moment possible. In 
1816 an act was passed which gave the landlords 
power they never had before to distrain. Under 
this act the landlords were able to do things that 
must be astonishing to Americans with their 
protection in the homestead laws for a man's 
household and instruments of labor. 

Under the statute referred to the landlord had 
the power to seize growing crops, to keep them 
till reaped, to save and sell them when reaped, 
and to charge upon the tenant the accumulation 
of expenses. Under this act the landlord had 
the power to ruin the tenant by seizing his 
growing crop. A.nother statute, however, was 
necessary to complete the authority of the land- 
lord and the helplessness of the tenant. Under 
an act passed in 1818 the landlord received the 
power to turn his tenant out of his holding. 

Act followed act then, in quick succession, for 
.the purpose of making eviction easy. Under 
one, for instance, if a landlord brought an action 
against a tenant for ejectment, he had the power 
to make the tenant give security for costs. The 
working of this was that he did not have money 
saved sufficient to defend a case. The case was 
adjudicated against him as though he had no de- 



236 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

fence. In other words in the condition in which 
the Irish farmers then were, this act gave the 
landlord a certainty of a verdict in his favor in 
all cases in which he might care to go to law. 
Then another act diminished the time which could 
elapse between the landlord obtaining his verdict 
and the tenant leaving his fields and house. 
Thus at every point the landlord was armed cap- 
a-pie ; the tenant was defenceless. Never in the 
history of mankind was there a code more com- 
plete in the interests of one class and against 
the interests of another. The law was well 
summed up by an Irish judge. "The entire 
landlord and tenant code," said Baron Penne- 
father, " goes to give increased facilities to the 
landlords." It should be remarked, too, that these 
laws were not only different from the laws of all 
other civilized countries in enabling- the landlord 
to throw the tenant and his family on the world 
starving and penniless, but they were different 
even from laws passed in the landlords' favor by 
the landlords of England. "The laws," said Mr. 
W. Pickens, in his " Economy of Ireland," " in the 
landlords' favor are already more summary and 
stronger than they are in England, and he is yet 
calling for additional assistance." 

The tenant then, in Ireland, stood in a unique 
position. Eorming as he did more than half 
the population he was left absolutely at the 
mercy of the landlord. Ignorant and timid in 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 237 

most cases he had never gone more than a few 
miles beyond the limits of his own farm ; he had 
never learned any occupation but that of farming. 
In other countries he could find in a near town a 
factory which opened wide its doors to willing la- 
bor. But, as has been seen, the Union had com- 
pleted the work that the laws of the Imperial 
Parliament had begun. Manufactories were 
in ruins ; the looms were silent ; the artisan 
either fled to other countries or remained in the 
towns to increase the ever-growing army of deso- 
lation. To the peasant, then, eviction meant 
emigration, if by some lucky chance the landlord 
had left him so much money as would pay for 
his passage to America, and in the vast majority 
of cases the tenant had to starve or enter the 
work-house. To be allowed to remain in his 
farm was life ; to be evicted was death. The 
landlord then, by the code of the Imperial Parlia- 
ment, was given power of life or death over the 
tenant. 

It has already been shown how this terrible au- 
thority, for which no body of men would be fitted, 
was especially dangerous in the hands of such a 
body as the Irish landlords had become under the 
Union. Every day they were more and more 
divorced from the people in sympathy and in 
interest, and thus it was that the Irish landlords 
perpetrated upon the Irish tenants cruelties that 
seem doings of human beings without hearts to 



238 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

feel, and without consciences to reproach. It has 
been seen through various quotations from the 
days of Spenser down to those of Lord Clare, 
who* helped to carry the Union, that the landlords 
had shamefully rack-rented their tenants during 
all their history. The reader will not forget such 
sentences as these. Edmund Spenser said : "The 
landlords there most shamefully rack their ten- 
ants." Dean Swift uses these words: "Rents 
squeezed out of the blood and vitals and clothes 
and dwellings of the tenants, who live worse than 
English beggars." To these may be added two 
quotations, the one from a great American and 
the other from a great English writer. Benjamin 
Franklin said : " The bulk of the people are ten- 
ants, extremely poor, living in the most sordid 
wretchedness, in dirty hovels of mud and straw, 
and clothed only in rags. . . . Had I never been 
in the American colonies, but were to form my 
judgment of civil society by what I have lately 
seen, I should never advise a nation of savages to 
admit of civilization, for I assure you that in the 
possession and enjoyment of the various comforts 
of life, compared to these people, every Indian is 
a gentleman, and the effect of this kind of civiliza- 
tion seems to be the depressing multitudes below 
the savage state, that a few may be raised above 
It. 

Arthur Young wrote : " It must be very ap- 
parent to every traveller through the country that 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 239 

the laboring poor are treated with harshness, and 
are in all respects so little considered, that their 
want of importance seems a perfect contrast to 
their situation in England. A long series of op- 
pressions, aided by many ill-judged laws, have 
brought landlords into a habit of exerting a very 
lofty superiority, and their vassals into that of an 
almost unlimited submission ; speaking a lan- 
guage that is despised, professing a religion that 
is abhorred, and being disarmed, the poor find 
themselves "in many cases slaves even in the 
bosom of written liberty." 

But evil as was the system before the Union, it 
became still worse after the Union, when the 
landlords had no longer the Irish population 
around them to look on in reproach and gradually 
to punish by the use of constitutional weapons. 
One of the. main causes of this was the increase 
of absenteeism. On this subject we have abun- 
dant material for forming a judgment. In a well- 
known work — " Dalton's History of the County 
Dublin " — a comparative table is drawn up of the 
annual absentee rental: 1691, ,£136,018; 1729, 
,£627,799; 1782, ,£2,223.222; 1783, ,£1,608,932; 
1804, £"3,000,000; 1830, ,£4,000,000; 1838, ,£5,- 
000,000. 

Absentee landlords naturally had no feeling 
about their tenants except that of drawing as 
much money from them as they could. And this 
is one of the many reasons why the Irish landlord 



240 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

compares unfavorably with the English landlord. 
In England, with all his faults, the landlord is al- 
ways conscious of the sense of his social obliga- 
tions to his tenantry. Thus in hard times the 
English landlord and the English farmer have 
managed to divide their loss between them, and 
in sickness and misery the children of the English 
farmer or of the English laborer have been vis- 
ited by the Ladies Bountiful of the landlord's 
house. But in Ireland the absentee-landlord 
never saw his tenants. To him they were mere 
ciphers, representing so much money for his 
interests and his pleasures. 

Testimony is unanimous as to the terrible state 
of things which was in this manner brought about ; 
and the testimony is often strongest from English 
pens. " Landlords in Ireland, among the lesser 
orders, extort exorbitant rents out of the bowels, 
sweat and rags of the poor, and then turn them 
adrift ; they are corrupt magistrates and jobbing 
grand-jurors, oppressing and plundering the mis- 
erable people." — Bryan's View of Ireland. 

" The Irish country gentleman," says the Dub- 
lin Pilot of 1833, "is, we are sorry to say, the 
most incorrigible being that infests the face of the 
globe. In the name of law he tramples on jus- 
tice ; boasting of superiority of Christian creed, 
he violates Christian charity — is mischievous in 
the name of the Lord." So speak these writers 
about the Irish landlord. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 241 

The House of Commons Committee of 1824, 
after having carefully taken the evidence, said : 
" The situation of the ejected tenantry, or of those 
who are obliged to give up their small holdings 
in order to promote the consolidation of farms, is 
necessarily most deplorable. It would be impos- 
sible for language to convey an idea of the state 
of distress to which the ejected tenantry have 
been reduced, or of the disease, misery or even 
vice which they have propagated where they 
have settled ; so that not only they who have 
been ejected have been rendered miserable, but 
they have carried with them and propagated that 
misery. They have increased the stock of labor, 
they have rendered the habitations of those who 
have received them more crowded, they have 
given occasion to the dissemination of disease, 
they have been obliged to resort to theft and all 
manner of vice and iniquity to procure subsist- 
ence ; but what is perhaps the most painful of 
all, a vast number of them have perished of 
want." 

By-and-by will be seen the terrible Nemesis 
which came upon the Irish people owing to a 
flagrant violation of all law and all sense in these 
proceedings. This state of affairs, attested to by 
the statements of travellers and the evidences 
given before committees, laid the foundation for 
one of the most wide-spread and horrible famines 
in human history. Meantime, what had the 



242 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Imperial Parliament been doing? Despite all 
the testimony of travellers, despite all the evi- 
dence of witnesses, in spite of all the reports of 
committees, Parliament refused to do one single 
thing, to pass one single act for the relief of the 
Irish tenant. 

All this time the Imperial Parliament had been 
busy with another form of legislation. The Act 
of Union had been passed in spite of the wishes 
of the Irish people. It was a government of 
tyranny and not of Union, and accordingly it pro- 
voked revolts and had to be maintained by the 
same methods as are sacred to despotism through- 
out all the world's history. The landlords, driv- 
ing out a number of starving and desperate 
wretches, upon the world without the protection 
of the laws or hope from the legislature, turned 
them into criminals of the most desperate char- 
acter. Wholesale eviction led to the formation 
of secret societies in which the tenant sought to 
inspire in the mind of the landlord that fear of 
wrong-doing and cruelty which under a native 
legislature would have been imposed by the laws. 

With these inevitable outbreaks of frenzy, igno- 
rance and despair the Imperial Parliament showed 
itself extraordinarily ready to deal, but always in 
the same senseless and heartless way. Coercion 
Act followed Coercion Act. In 1800, 1801, 1802, 
1803, 1804 an d 1805 the Habeas Corpus Act was 
suspended. It was again suspended from 1807 to 



THE. GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 243 

1810; from 1814 to 181 7; from 1822 to 1828; 
from 1829 to 183 1 ; from 1833 to 1835. There 
were in addition several other and special Coer- 
cion Acts. Often there were two Coercion Acts 
enforced in the same year. In the first year of 
the Union five exceptional laws were passed. 
Many of these acts abolished trial by jury, some 
established martial law. Transportation, flog- 
ging, death were the common sentences. 

We will now draw up a list of the Coercion 
Acts, passed during the Act of Union : 

1800 to 1805. Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
Seven Coercion Acts. 

1807. February 1st, Coercion Act. Habeas 
Corpus Suspension. August 2d, Insurrection 
Act. 

1808-9. Habeas Corpus Suspension. 

18 14 to 18 1 6. Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
Insurrection Act. 

181 7. Habeas Corpus Suspension. One 
Coercion Act. 

1822 to 1830. Habeas Corpus Suspension. 
Two Coercion Acts in 1822, and one in 1823. 

1830. Importation of Arms Act. 

1 83 1. Whiteboy Act. 

1 83 1. Stanley's Arms Act. 

1832. Arms and Gunpowder Act. 

1833. Suppression of Disturbance. 

1833. Change of Venue Act. 

1834. Disturbances, Amendment, and Con- 
tinuance. 



244 



GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 



1834 

1835 
1836 
1838 

1839 
184O 
184I 

184I 
1843 
1843 

Acts. 
1844 

1845 
Works 

1845 
1846 

1847 
1848 
1848 
1848 
1848 
1849 
1850 
1851 
1853 
1854 

1855 
1856 

1858 

i860 



Arms and Gunpowder Act. 

Public Peace Act. 

Another Arms Act. 

Another Arms Act. 

Unlawful Oaths Act. 

Another Arms Act. 

Outrages Act. 

Another Arms Act. 

Another Arms Act. 

Act Consolidating all Previous Coercion 

Unlawful Oaths Act. 
Additional Constables near Public 
Act. 

Unlawful Oaths Act. 
Constabulary Enlargement. 
Crime and Outrage Act. 
Treason .Amendment Act. 
Removal of Arms Act. 
Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
Another Oaths Act. 
Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 
Crime and Outrage Act. 
Unlawful Oaths Act. 
Crime and Outrage Act. 
Crime and Outrage Act. 
Crime and Outrage Act. 
Peace Preservation Act. 
Peace Preservation Act. 
Peace Preservation Act. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 245 

1862. Peace Preservation Act. 

1862. Unlawful Oaths Act. 

1865. Peace Preservation Act 

1866. Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act 

1866. Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 

1867. Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 

1868. Suspension of Habeas Corpus. 

1870. Peace Preservation Act. 

1871. Protection of Life and Property. 
1 87 1. Peace Preservation Con. 

1873. Peace Preservation Act. 
1875. Peace Preservation Act. 
1875. Unlawful Oaths Act. 
1 88 1 to 1882. Peace Preservation Act (sus- 
pending Habeas Corpus). 

188 1 to 1886. Arms Act. 

1882 to 1885. Crimes Act. 
1886 to 1887. Arms Act. 

Under a system like this it was inevitable that 
there should be discontent ; and, whenever there 
seemed even a chance of success, open rebellion. 
In most of the active insurrections Irish Protes- 
tants took a leading- part. Of the heroic men 
who sacrificed their lives to rescue their country 
from the dread evils that the Act of Union was 
inflicting upon it the best remembered is Robert 
Emmet. Emmet was a young man of good family 
and position; and had inherited from his father 
what was considered a good fortune in those 
days. In conjunction with Thomas Addis Emmet, 



246 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

who still is remembered as one of New York's 
greatest lawyers — he and several other Protes- 
tants attempted a rebellion ; the rebellion failed, 
and he was hanged in Thomas street, Dublin. 
The spot is still pointed out; is the object of 
reverent attention ; and the memory of Emmet is 
celebrated every year in almost all the important 
cities of America. 

Meantime the condition of the country grew 
worse from day to day. In 1817 there was an 
extensive famine ; and it is recorded that the 
people in several parts of the country were well 
content to live on boiled nettles. In 1822 there 
was an even severer and more extensive famine. 
Sir John Newport, a well-known and prominent 
member of the Imperial Parliament, attempted 
over and over again to extort some attention 
from the Legislature to the dreadful state of 
things in Ireland. He pointed out that in one 
parish fifteen had already died of hunger ; that 
twenty-eight more were past recovery ; that 1 20 
were down in famine fever. He went on to 
state another fact which throws a lurid lio-ht on 
the state to which the Union had reduced the 
Irish people ; in one parish he said the priest had 
given extreme unction — the sacrament which is 
administered in the Catholic Church to those 
only who are in almost certain danger of imme- 
diate death — to every man, woman and child in 
the place ; every one of them he expected to 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 247 

die. But the Imperial Parliament, which had 
undertaken the government of Ireland, had no 
remedy to offer for this state of things. A com- 
mittee was appointed ; evidence was taken, some 
specimens of which have already been quoted; 
but the one thing the Legislature had to offer as 
a remedy for the national disease of hunger was 
a small grant of money in the shape of alms. 
The close of the war with Napoleon aggravated 
all the evils from which the Irish farmer was 
suffering, by causing a great depreciation in the 
price of agricultural produce; and also by the 
removal of the one reason the British authorities 
had for being ordinarily civil to the Irish nation. 
And thus the country went down deeper daily in 
the slough of poverty, despond, despair. Taxes 
were rising, rents increasing. The drain on the 
country through absenteeism in each successive 
year became larger, and entire or partial famine 
followed each other at shorter intervals and 
with intensified suffering. The picture is com- 
pleted by the passage of Coercion laws in the 
abundance already set forth, so as to stifle the 
voice of impatient and savage hunger, and by the 
sanguinary crimes in which tiger passions and 
tiger appetites avenged or sought to protect 
themselves. The assizes rarely ended without 
the hanging of several unhappy peasants. The 
fate of the Irish peasant came to this ; he 
begged the right to eat two meals of potatoes 



'248 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and salt in his own land and out of the earnings 
of his own arms and capital. For potatoes were 
all that the landlords left to the consumption of 
the tenants ; occasionally the peasant was refused 
even this small privilege ; with wife and child was 
put on the roadside to die. Then he went to 
the assassination lodge ; and risked, and perhaps 
lost, life to defend the right to two meals of po- 
tatoes daily. 

This tale of wrong, poverty and hopeless mis- 
ery became so loud and plain that in 1810 the 
Repeal of the Union, the fatal act by which the 
sufferings of the country had been so terribly ag- 
gravated, was demanded at a great meeting in the 
city of Dublin, at which Protestants and Catholics 
joined in equally fervent denunciation of the de- 
struction of the Irish Parliament. But the demand 
fell upon deaf ears, and that policy was plainly 
hopeless. By a number of circumstances not re- 
quiring elaborate description, Catholic Emancipa- 
tion was held to be a more practicable reform, 
and was pushed to the front of all other Irish 
demands. The leader of this great movement 
was Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell is one of his- 
tory's most marvellous products. In physique he 
had the stamp of strength and greatness. Tall, 
brawny, muscular, active, he was of dauntless 
courage, of exhaustless industry, of never-sleeping 
energy. His oratory, perhaps, has received more 
unanimous and more lofty eulogy than that of any 







DANIEL O'CONNELL, THE GREAT IRISH AGITATOR. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 25] 

other leader in history. He was equally potent 
with a great monster gathering of his own people 
on the Irish hillside and in the House of Com- 
mons, surrounded by foes and compelled to ad- 
here most closely to dry statement of fact. He 
had every quality of the orator — an abounding 
humor, immense powers of pathos, close reason- 
ing, masterly preparation and skilful presentation 
of facts. Laughter and tears followed each other 
in rapid succession when he addressed his own 
people, and when he confronted opponents there 
was no fallacy which he was not able to pierce 
and annihilate. In addition to all this he had 
great organizing genius. Above all things, he 
was rich in the orator's mightiest weapon ; his 
voice was like the sound of some strange music ; 
powerful as an organ — as varied in tone as the 
violin ; as artfully modulated as the throat of the 
prima donna. Armed with the single weapon of 
his tongue alone, he achieved some of the great- 
est victories of history. For nearly half a century 
he exercised over a race, mobile, impatient, often 
desperate, a dictatorship as complete as ever Czar 
has been able to wield by the aid of multitudinous 
armies, vast fleets, ubiquitous police. He wrung 
from the greatest and the most hostile Ministers, 
and from the even more violently hostile King of 
England, one of the greatest triumphs of modern 
politics. He was able to raise the income of a 

principality from his self-ordained subjects, and he 
15 



252 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

was able finally to soar away from all rivals as an 
Alpine mountain from the plains below. 

The final event that precipitated Catholic eman- 
cipation was the Clare election. In England 
when a member of Parliament accepts a high 
office he has to vacate his seat, and submit him- 
self once more to his constituency. Mr. Vesey 
Fitzgerald, the member for County Clare, had 
been appointed to the presidency of the Board of 
Trade. He was a popular Irishman, a good land- 
lord, a staunch friend to Catholic claims, and of 
personally estimable character. But some daring 
spirit suggested that the great Agitator himself 
should stand for the vacancy. It was known that, 
as a Catholic, he could not take. his seat; but it 
was assumed that the experiment would bring 
things to a crisis, and compel the wavering gov- 
ernment finally to yield. After a contest of un- 
exampled excitement, O'Connell was returned. 
The world was astounded ; the Orange party in 
Ireland was driven almost out of its senses, and 
statesmen at last saw that Catholic emancipation 
could no longer be delayed. O'Connell after an 
interval presented himself at the bar of the House 
of Commons. He was asked to take the oath 
which was still in existence. This oath declared 
that the King of England was head of the Church 
and that " the sacrifice of the mass was impious 
and idolatrous." It was an oath which of course 
no Catholic could take, and O'Connell rejected 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 2hD 

it. He was refused admission ; and when finally 
Catholic emancipation was carried, the English 
ministers took a last and a mean revenge by 
tacking on a provision which prevented the act 
from being retrospective, and thereby compelled 
O'Connell to be elected over again. 

So ended the first great struggle after the 
Union. Ireland gave herself up to a delirium of 
joy; O'Connell was idolized; was given the 
sobriquet of the Liberator, by which he was pop- 
ularly known for the rest of his life ; and it was 
supposed that, after the long night, the sun of 
Ireland was at last high in the heavens. In the 
next chapter it will be seen how bitterly these 
hopes were disappointed ; how the real roots of 
Irish maladies were untouched ; how the disease 
went on o-ettinp - aggravated until it ended in one 
of the most awful tragedies in history. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE GREAT FAMINE. 



THE dreadful famine of 1845 was only the 
culmination of evils. The distress of the 
country for many years had been great. It was 
officially reported in 1824 " that a very consider- 
able proportion of the population, variously esti- 
mated at a fourth or a fifth of the whole, is con- 
sidered to be out of employment ; that this, 
combined with the consequences of an altered 
system of managing land, produces misery and 
suffering which no language can possibly describe, 
and which it is necessary to witness in order fully 
to estimate. The situation of the ejected ten- 
antry, or of those who are obliged to give up 
their small holdings in order to promote the con- 
solidation of farms, is most deplorable. It would 
be impossible for language to convey an idea of 
the state of distress to which the ejected tenantry 
have been reduced, or of the disease, misery, or 
even vice which they have propagated where 
they have settled ; so that not only they who 
have been ejected have been rendered miserable, 
but they have carried with them and propagated 
254 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 255 

that misery. They have increased the stock of 
labor, they have rendered the habitations of those 
who have received them more crowded, they have 
given occasion to the dissemination of disease, 
they have been obliged to resort to theft and all 
manner of vice and iniquity to procure subsist- 
ence; but what is perhaps the most painful of all, 
a vast number of them have perished of want." 
The Poor Law Inquiry of 1835 reported that 
2,235,000 persons were out of work and in dis- 
tress for thirty weeks in the year. The Devon 
Commission reported that it " would be impossible 
to describe adequately the sufferings and priva- 
tions which the cottiers and laborers and their 
families in most parts of the country endure," 
" their cabins are seldom a protection against the 
weather," "a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury," 
"in many districts their only food is the potato, 
their only beverage water." " Returning noth- 
ing," Mr. Mill writes of the Irish landlords, " to 
the soil, they consume its whole produce minus 
the potatoes strictly necessary to keep the in- 
habitants from dying of famine." It was this 
state of affairs between the landlord and tenant 
that gave to the potato its fatal importance in the 
economy of Irish life. All the wheat and oats 
which were grown on the land must go to the 
payment of the rent ; and also so much of the 
potato crop as was not required to keep the 
tenant and his family from absolute starvation. 



256 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The potato was well suited for the position of the 
tenant. It produced a larger amount per acre 
than any other crop ; it suited the soil and the 
climate. The potato meant abundant food or 
starvation, life or wholesale death. It was the 
thin partition between famine and the Irish 
people. 

The plant had its bad qualities as well as its 
good ; it was fickle, perishable, liable to whole- 
sale destruction, and more than once already had 
given proof of its terrible uncertainty. The readi- 
ness of the potato to fail was the main factor in 
Irish life, not merely in the epoch with which we 
are now dealing, but in a period a great deal 
nearer to our own time. 

But in 1845 tne fields everywhere waved green 
and flowery, and there was the promise of an 
abundant harvest. There had been whispers of 
the appearance of disease; but it was in coun- 
tries that in those days appeared remote — in 
Belgium or Germany, in Canada or America. In 
the autumn of 1845 ft ma de its appearance for the 
first time in the United Kingdom. It was first 
detected in the Isle of Wight, and in the first week 
of September the greater number of the potatoes 
in the London market were found to be unfit for 
human food. In Ireland the autumnal weather 
was suggestive of some calamity. For weeks the 
air was electrical and disturbed: there was much 
lightning, unaccompanied by thunder. At last 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 257 

traces of the disease: began to be discovered. A 
dark spot— such as would come from a drop of 
ac id — was found in green leaves; the disease 
then spread rapidly, and in the time there was 
nothing in many of the potato-fields but withered 
leaves emitting a putrid stench. 

The disease soon appeared on the coast oi 
Wexford, and before many weeks were over re- 
ports of an alarming character began to come 
from the interior. The plague was stealthy and 
swift, and a crop that was sound one day the next 
was rotten. As time passed on the disaster 
spread ; potatoes, healthy when they were dug 
and pitted, were found utterly decayed when the 
pit was opened. All kinds of remedies were pro- 
posed by scientific men — ventilation, new plans 
of pitting and of packing, the separation of the 
sound and unsound parts of the potato. All 
failed ; the blight, like the locust, was victor over 
all obstacles. 

At this moment England was in the very 
agony of one of her greatest party struggles. 
The advent of the Irish famine was the last event 
that broke down Peel's faith in protection. 
When these warnings of impending disaster and 
these urgent prayers for relief came from Ire- 
land, Peel was in the unfortunate position of 
being convinced of the danger, and at the same 
time impotent as to the remedies. He was at 
that moment in the midst of his attempts to carry 



258 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

over his colleagues to free trade ; and so his 
hands were tied. He did propose that the 
ports should be opened by order in Council, but 
to this proposal he could not get some of his 
colleagues to agree. Then there came a min- 
isterial crisis : Peel resigned ; Lord John Russell 
was unable to form an administration ; and Peel 
again resumed office. The result ol these 
various occurrences was that the ports were not 
opened and that Parliament was not summoned ; 
and thus three months — every single minute of 
which involved wholesale life or death — were 
allowed to pass without any effective remedy. 

Under such circumstances, O'Connell and the 
leaders of the National party were justified in 
drawing a contrast between this deadly delay 
and the promptitude that a native Legislature 
would have shown. " If," he exclaimed at the 
Repeal Association, " they ask me what are my 
propositions for relief of the distress, I answer, 
first, Tenant-right. I would propose a law giving- 
to every man his own. I would give the land- 
lord his land, and a fair rent for it; but I would 
give the tenant compensation for every shilling 
he might have laid out on the land in permanent 
improvements. And what next do I propose? 
Repeal of the Union." And then he went on : 
" If we had a Domestic Parliament, would not 
the ports be thrown open — would not the abun- 
dant crops with which Heaven has blessed her be 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 259 

kept for the people of Ireland — and would not 
the Irish Parliament be more active even than 
the Belgian Parliament to provide for the people 
food and employment? " 

The opening hours of the next Parliamentary 
session were sufficient to damp all hopes. On 
means of affording relief the Queen's Speech 
was vague ; but on the question of Coercion it 
spoke in terms of unmistakable plainness. "I 
have observed," said that document, " with deep 
regret, the very frequent instances in which the 
crime of deliberate assassination has been of 
late committed in Ireland. It will be your duty 
to consider whether any measures can be devised 
calculated to give increased protection to life and 
to bring to justice the perpetrators of so dread- 
ful a crime." The characteristic contrast be- 
tween the tender solicitude of the Government 
for the landlords, and its half-hearted regard for 
the tenants — at the moment when of the tenants 
a thousand had died through eviction and hunger 
for every one of the landlords who had met 
death through assassination — roused the bitterest 
resentment in Ireland. "The only notice," ex 
claimed the Nation, " vouchsafed to this country 
is a hint that more gaols, more transportation 
and more gibbets might be useful to us. Or, 
possibly, we wrong the Minister ; perhaps when 
her Majesty says that 'protection must be af- 
forded to life,' she means that the people are not 



260 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

to be allowed to die of hunger during the ensu- 
ing summer — or that the lives of tenants are to 
be protected against the extermination of clear- 
ing landlords— and that so ' deliberate assassi- 
nation ' may become less frequent ; — God knows 
what she means." 

The measures for limiting the distress were, 
first, the importation of corn on a lowered duty; 
and, secondly, the advance of two sums of 50,000/., 
one to the landlords for the drainage of their 
lands, and the other for public works. The 
ridiculous disproportion of these sums to the 
magnitude of the calamity was proved before 
very long; but to all representations the Govern- 
ment replied in the haughtiest spirit of official 
optimism. " Instructions have been given," said 
Sir James Graham, " on the responsibility of the 
Government to meet any emergency." Only one 
good measure was covered by the generous self- 
complacency of this round assertion. Under a 
Treasury minute of December 19, 1845, ^ ie Min- 
istry had instructed Messrs. Baring and Co. to 
purchase 100,000/. worth of Indian corn. This 
they introduced secretly into Ireland, and its dis- 
tribution proved most timely. The Irish mem- 
bers pressed for more definite assurances. But 
their suggestions and Peel's beneficent intentions 
were frustrated by the fatal entanglement of Irish 
sorrows in personal ambitions and partisan war- 
fare. Peel had put forward the Irish famine as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 261 

the main reason for his change of opinion on the 
Corn Laws ; and the Irish famine became one of 
the great debatable topics between the adherents 
of free trade and of protection. All the organs 
of the landlords in Ireland united in the state- 
ment that the reports of distress were unreal and 
exaggerated. " The potato crop of this year," 
wrote the Evening Mail (1845), " ^ ar exceeded an 
average one ; " " the corn of all kinds is so far 
abundant" — which, indeed, was quite true — "the 
apprehensions of a famine are unfounded, and 
are merely made the pretence for withholding 
the payment of rent." Some days after it re- 
peated, "there was a sufficiency, an abundance 
of sound potatoes in the country for the wants of 
the people." "The potato famine in Ireland," 
exclaimed Lord George Bentinck, " was a gross 
delusion ; a more gross delusion had never been 
practised upon any country by any Government." 
"The cry of famine was a mere pretence for a 
party object." " Famine in Ireland," said Lord 
Stanley, " was a vision — a baseless vision." 

Nothing brings the position of the Irish tenant 
with more terrible clearness to the mind than 
the fact that the awful warning of 1845 nac ^ to be 
unheeded. In 1846 the potato was still cherished 
as the single resource of the peasant. In his 
circumstances the potato, and the potato alone, 
offered him hope. 

Contemporary testimony is unanimous in de- 



262 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

scribing the peasants as working at that period 
with a determination to risk all on the one 
cast that exhibited a whole people in a state of 
desperation. "Already feeling the pinch of sore 
distress, if not actual famine, they worked as if 
for dear life ; they begged and borrowed on any 
terms the means whereby to crop the land once 
more. The pawn-offices were choked with the 
humble finery that had shone at the village dance 
or christening feast ; the banks and local money- 
lenders were besieged with appeals for credit. 
Meals were stinted ; backs were bared." The 
spring was unpromising enough. Snow, hail 
and sleet fell in March. But when the summer 
came, it made amends for all this. The weather 
ii June was of tropical heat; vegetation sprang 
up with something of tropical rapidity; and 
everybody anticipated a splendid harvest. To- 
wards the end of June there was a change for 
the worse. So also in July, there was the alter- 
nation of tropical heat and thunder-storm, of 
parching dryness and excessive rain. After this 
there was a continuous downpour of rain. Still 
the crop went on splendidly; and all over the 
country once again wide fields promised exuber- 
ant abundance. 

In the early days of August symptoms of 
coining disaster were seen. A strange portent 
was seen simultaneously in several parts of Ire- 
land. A fog — which some describe as extremely 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 2GP, 

white and others as yellow — was seen to rise 
from the ground ; the fog was dry, and emitted 
a disagreeable odor. The fog of that night 
bore the blight within its accursed bosom. The 
work of destruction was as swift as it was uni- 
versal. In a single night and throughout the 
whole country the entire crop was destroyed, al- 
most to the last potato. "On the 27th of last 
month" (July), writes Father Mathew, "I passed 
from Cork to Dublin, and this doomed plant 
bloomed in all the luxuriance of an abundant 
harvest. Returning on the 3d instant (August), 
I beheld with sorrow one wide waste of putre- 
fying- vegetation." 

Some of the people rushed into the towns, 
others wandered listlessly along the high roads 
in the vague and vain hope that food would some- 
how or other come to their hands. They grasped 
at everything that promised sustenance ; they 
plucked^ turnips from the fields; many were 
glad to live for weeks on a single meal of cab- 
bage a day. In some cases they feasted on the 
dead bodies of horses and asses and dogs ; and 
there is at least one horrible story of a mother 
eating the limbs of her dead child. 

The characteristic merriment of the peasantry 
totally disappeared. People went about, not 
speaking even to beg, with a " stupid, despair- 
ing look ; " children looked " like old men and 
women ; " and even the lower animals seemed to 



■264 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

feel the surrounding despair. Parents neglected 
their children, and in a few localities children 
turned out their aged parents. But such cases 
were very rare, and in the most remote parts of 
the country. There are, on the other hand, 
numberless stories of parents willingly dying the 
slow death of starvation to save a small store of 
food for their children. 

The workhouse was then, as now, an object ot 
loathing. Within its walls take refuge the vic- 
tims of vice and the outcasts of the towns. En- 
trance into the workhouse was regarded not 
merely as marking social ruin, but moral degra- 
dation. Fathers and mothers died themselves, 
and allowed their children to die along- with them 
within their own hovels, rather than seek a refuge 
within those hated walls. But the time came 
when hunger and disease swept away these pre- 
judices, and the people craved admission. Here, 
again, hope was cheated; the accommodation in 
the workhouses was far below the requirements 
of the people. At Westport 3,000 persons 
sought relief in a single day, when the work- 
house, though built to accommodate 1,000 per- 
sons, was already " crowded far beyond its ca- 
pacity." The streets were crowded with wan- 
derers sauntering to and fro with hopeless air 
and hunger-struck look. Driven from the work- 
houses, they began to die on the roadside, or 
within their own cabins. Corpses lay strewn by 



THE GREAT IRISfl STRUGGLE. 265 

the side of once-frequented roads, and at doors 
in the most crowded streets of the towns. Dur- 
ing that period, roads in many places became as 
charnel-houses, and car and coach drivers rarely 
drove anywhere without seeing dead bodies 
strewn along- the roadside. In the neiehbor- 

o fc> 

hood of Clifden one inspector of roads caused no 
less than 140 bodies to be buried which he found 
along the highway. It was a common occurrence 
to find on opening the front door in early morn- 
ing, leaning against it, the corpse of some victim 
who in the night-time had rested in its shelter. 
Men with horse and cart were employed to go 
around each day and gather up the dead. 

The bodies of those who had fallen on the road 
lay for days unburied. Husbands lay for a week 
in the same hovels with the bodies of their un- 
buried wives and children. Often when there 
was a funeral it bore even ghastlier testimony 
to the terror of the time. " In this town," writes 
a correspondent from Skibbereen, " have I wit- 
nessed to-day men, fathers, carrying perhaps their 
only child to its last home, its remains enclosed 
in a few deal boards patched together; I have 
seen them, on this day, in three or four instances, 
carrying those coffins under their arms or upon 
their shoulders, without a single individual in at- 
tendance upon them ; without mourner or cere- 
mony — without wailing or lamentation. The 
people in the street, the laborers congregated 



266 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

in the town, regarded the spectacle without sur- 
prise ; they looked on with indifference, because 
it was of hourly occurrence." 

Meantime, what had Government been doing? 
They had been aggravating nearly all the evils 
that were causing so rich a harvest of suffering 
and death. Donations to the amount of ^100,000 
had been given from the Treasury under Peel in 
aid of subscriptions raised by charitable organiza- 
tions. A more important step was the setting on 
foot of works for the employment of the destitute. 

Lord John Russell suddenly closed the works 
which had been set on foot by Peel. At the time 
there were no less than 97,900 persons employed 
on the relief works ; and the effect of adding this 
vast army of unemployed to the population whose 
condition has just been described can be imag- 
ined. 

Russell's policy was announced on August 17, 
1846; and, well-intentioned as his scheme doubt- 
less was, there was scarcely a sentence in it which 
did not do harm. The Government did not pro- 
pose to interfere with the regular mode by which 
Indian corn and other kinds of grain might be 
brought into Ireland. The Government proposed 
" to leave that trade as much at liberty as pos- 
sible." " They would take care not to interfere 
with the regular operations of merchants for the 
supply to the country or with the retail trade." 
Relief works were to be set on foot by the Board 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 267 

of Works when they had previously been pre- 
sented at presentment sessions. For these works 
the Government were to advance money at the 
rate of 3^ per cent, repayable in ten years. In 
the poorer districts the Government were to make 
grants to the extent of ,£50,000. 

The evil effects of this legislation were not long 
in showing themselves. The declarations with 
regard to non-intervention with trade were espe- 
cially disastrous. The price of grain at once went 
up, and while the deficiency of food was thus 
enormously increased, speculators were driven to 
frenzy by the prospect of fabulous gains. Wheat 
that had been exported by starving tenants was 
afterwards reimported to Ireland ; sometimes be- 
fore it was finally sold it had crossed the Irish Sea 
four times — delirious speculation offering new 
bids and rushing in insane eagerness in search 
of the daily increasing prices. Stories are still 
told of the ruin that was the Nemesis to some of 
the greedy speculators in a nation's starvation. 
More than one who kept his corn obstinately in 
store while the people around him were dying by 
the thousand, when he at last opened the doors 
found, not his longed-for treasure-house, but an 
accumulation of rotten corn. "A client of mine," 
writes Fitzgibbon, "in the winter of 1846-47 be- 
came the owner of corn cargoes Q f such number 
and magnitude that if he had accepted the prices 
pressed upon him in April and May, 1847, ne 

16 



268 GLADSTONE— PARNEI. I.. 

would have realized a profit of ,£70,000. He 
held for still higher offers, until the market 
turned in June, fell in July, and rapidly tumbled 
as an abundant harvest became manifest. He 
still held, hoping for a recovery, and in the end 
of October he became a bankrupt." Thus did 
this man's fatal avarice overreach itself and ruin 
him. 

The Government did not interfere with the 
regular mode by which Indian corn might be 
brou o-ht into Ireland. In Cork alone one firm 
was reported to have cleared ,£40,000, and an- 
other ,£80,000, from corn speculations. The 
reason for the non-intervention with the supply 
of Indian corn was that the retail trade might 
not be interfered with ; and at this period retail 
shops were so few and far between for the sale 
of corn that the laborer in the public works had 
sometimes to walk twenty or twenty-five miles in 
order to buy a single stone of meal. 

Meantime a bitter calamity was added to those 
from which the people were already suffering. 
Pestilence always hovers on the flank of famine, 
and combined with wholesale starvation there 
were numerous other circumstances that rendered 
a plague inevitable — the assemblage of such im- 
mense numbers of people at the public works and 
in the workhouses, the vast number of corpses 
that lay unburied, and finally the consumption of 
unaccustomed food. The plague which fell upon 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 269 

Ireland in 1846-47 was of a peculiarly virulent 
kind. 

The name applied to it at the time sufficiently 
signified its orio-in. It was known as the " road 
fever." Attacking as it did people already weak- 
ened by hunger it was a scourge of merciless 
severity. Unlike famine, too, it struck alike at 
the rich and poor — the well-fed and the hungered. 
Famine killed one or two of a family; the fever 
swept them all away. Food relieved hunger; 
the fever was past all such surgery. 

The people, worn out by famine, had not the 
physical or mental energy even to move from 
their cabins. The panic which the plague every- 
where created intensified the miseries. The 
annals of the time are full of the kindly, but rude 
attempts of the poor to stand by each other. It 
was a custom of the period to have food left at 
the doors or handed in on shovels or sticks to the 
people inside the cabins ; but very often the 
wretched inmates were entirely deserted. Lying 
beside each other, some living and some dead, 
their passage to the grave was uncheered by one 
act of help, by one word of sympathy. "A terri- 
ble apathy hangs over the poor ; starvation has 
destroyed every generous sympathy ; despair has 
made them hardened and insensible, and they 
sullenly await their doom with indifference and 
without fear. Death is in every hovel ; disease 
and famine, its dread precursors, have fastened 



270 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

on the young and the old, the strong and the 
feeble, the mother and the infant ; whole families 
lie together on the damp floor devoured by fever, 
without a human being to wet their burning lips 
or raise their languid heads ; the husband dies by 
the side of the wife, and she knows not that he is 
beyond the reach of earthly suffering ; the same 
rag covers the festering remains of mortality and 
the skeleton forms of the living, who are uncon- 
scious of the horrible contiguity; rats devour the 
corpse, and there is no energy among the living 
to scare them from their horrid banquet ; fathers 
bury their children without a sigh, and cover 
them in shallow graves round which no weeping 
mother, no sympathizing friends are grouped ; 
one scanty funeral is followed by another and 
another. Without food or fuel, bed or bedding, 
whole families are shut up in naked hovels, drop- 
ping one by one into the arms of death." 

Before accommodation for patients "approached 
anything like the necessity of the time, most 
mournful and piteous scenes were presented in 
the vicinity of fever hospitals and workhouses in 
large towns. Day after day numbers of people, 
wasted by famine and consumed by fever, could 
be seen lying on the footpaths and roads waiting 
for the chance of admission ; and when they were 
fortunate enough to be received their places were 
soon filled by -other victims!" 

"At the gate leading to the temporary fever 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 271 

hospital, erected near Kilmainham, were men, 
women and children, lying' along the pathway and 
in the gutter, awaiting their turn to be admitted. 
Some were stretched at full length, with their 
faces exposed to the full glare of the sun, their 
mouths opened, and their black and parched 
tongues and encrusted teeth visible even from a 
distance. Some women had children at the 
breast who lay beside them in silence and appa- 
rent exhaustion — the fountain of their life being- 
dried up ; whilst in the centre of the road stood a 
cart containing a whole family who had been 
smitten down together by the terrible typhus, 
and had been brought there by the charity of a 
neighbor." 

Outside the workhouses similar scenes took 
place. "Those who were not admitted — and 
they were, of course, the great majority — having 
no homes to return to, lay down and died." 

Admission to the fever hospital and to the 
workhouse was but the postponement or often 
the acceleration of death. Owing to the unex- 
pected demands made upon their space, the offi- 
cials of these institutions were utterly unable to 
adopt measures for diminishing the epidemic. 
The crowding rendered it impossible to separate 
even the dead and the dying — there were not 
beds for a tithe of the applicants ; and thus the 
epidemic was spread and intensified. " Inside 
the hospital enclosure" (the fever hospital at 



272 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Kilmainham), says a writer, "was a small, open 
shed, in which were thirty-five human beings 
heaped indiscriminately on a little straw thrown 
on the around. Several had been thus for three 
days, drenched by rain, etc. Some were uncon- 
scious, others dying" ; two died during the night." 
" We visited the poorhouse at Glenties " (county 
of Donegal), says Mr. Tuke, "which is in a 
dreadful state ; the people were, in fact, half 
starved, and only half clothed. They had not 
sufficient food in the house for the day's supply. 
Some were leaving the house, preferring to die 
in their own hovels rather than in the poorhouse. 
Their bedding consisted of dirty straw, in which 
they were laid in rows on the floor, even as many 
as six persons being crowded under one rug. 
The living and the dying were stretched side 
by side beneath the same miserable covering." 
The general effect of all this is summed up thus 
pithily but completely in the report of the Poor 
Law Commissioners for 1846: "In the present 
state of things nearly every person admitted is a 
patient ; separation of the sick, by reason of their 
number, becomes impossible; disease spreads, 
and by rapid transition the workhouse is changed 
into one large hospital." 

Workhouses and hospitals were not the only 
institutions which were filled. The same thing 
happened to the gaols. The prison came to be* 
regarded as a refuge. Only smaller offences 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 273 

were at first committed ; and an epidemic of 
glass-breaking set in. But as times went on, 
and the pressure of distress became greater, 
graver crimes became prevalent. Thus sheep- 
stealing grew to be quite a common offence ; 
and a prisoner's good fortune was supposed to 
be complete if he were sentenced to the once 
loathed punishment of transportation beyond the 
seas. The Irishman was made happy by the fate 
which took him to any land, provided only it was 
not his own. 

But the prisons, without a tithe of the accom- 
modation necessary for the inmates, became nests 
of disease ; and often the offender who hoped for 
the luck of transportation beyond the seas found 
that the sentence of even a week's imprisonment 
proved a sentence of death. 

The total deaths between 1841 and 1851 from 
fever were 222,029. But, allowing for deficient 
returns, 250,000 — a quarter of a million of people 
— perished from fever alone. 

The famine and the fever were naturally accom- 
panied and followed by other maladies which re- 
sult from insufficiency and unsuitability. of food. 
The potato blight continued with varying viru- 
lence until 1S51, its existence being marked by 
the prevalence in more or less severe epidemics 
of dysentery, which carried off 5,492 persons in 
1846, 25,757 m ^47, the annual totals swelling, 
until in 1849 the deaths from this disease alone 



274 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

amounted to 29,446; cholera, which destroyed 
35,989 lives in 1848-49; small-pox, to which 
38,275 persons fell victims in the decennial pe- 
riod between 1841 and 1851. It should be added 
that as a direct consequence of the famine many 
thousands suffered severely from scurvy, and the 
terrible mortality of these epidemics, especially 
of the fever, led to the most repulsive methods of 
dealing with the dead. 

The hideous magnitude of the sufferings of 
Ireland at that moment was bound to increase 
the tendency to discord. The young and strong 
and brave can never reconcile themselves to the 
gospel that there is such a thing in this world as 
inevitable evil. The sight of so many thousands 
of people perishing miserably naturally sug- 
gested a frenzied temper, and the extreme course 
that such a temper begets. Among the young 
men, therefore, who o-athered round the leaders 
of the Nation newspaper, there was a constant 
feeling that enough was not being done to save 
the people. O'Connell was now approaching 
the close of a long and busy life. One of the 
great causes of the split between Young and 
Old Ireland was in reference to what are called 
the " peace resolutions." Some of the utterances 
of the Young Irelanders had suggested the em- 
ployment ot physical force under certain circum- 
stances ; and O'Connell insisted upon the Repeal 
Association solemnly renewing its adhesion to 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 275 

the resolutions. These resolutions, passed at its 
formation, laid down the doctrine that no po- 
litical reform was worth purchasing by the shed- 
ding of even one drop of- blood. It is hard to 
believe that O'Connell ever did accept in its en- 
tirety the doctrine that physical force was not a 
justifiable expedient under any imaginable cir- 
cumstances. O'Connell probably meant to say, 
that Ireland was so weak at that time when com- 
pared to England, that an exercise of physical 
force could have no possible chance of success, 
and that it was as well to reconcile the people to 
their impotence by raising it to the dignity of a 
great moral principle. From this time forward 
there were rival organizations, rival leaders and 
rival policies in the National party. 

O'Connell did not survive to see the complete 
wreck of the vast organization which he had held 
together for so long a period. Rarely has a 
great, and on the whole successful, career ended 
in gloom so unbroken. He worked on as ener- 
getically as ever, for he was a man whose indus- 
try never paused. But both he and his policy 
had lost their prestige. The young and ardent 
began to question his power, and still more to 
doubt his policy. Then came 1846 and 1847, 
with the people whom he had pledged himself to 
bring into the promised land of self-government 
and prosperity dying of hunger and disease, 
fleeing as from an accursed spot, or bound to 



276 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the fiery wheel of oppression more securely than 
ever. On April 3d, 1846, he delivered a length- 
ened speech to the House of Commons, of - 
which an entirely inaccurate description is given 
in Lord Beaconsfield's " Life of Lord George 
Bentinck." 

However much the voice and other physical 
attributes of O'Connell may have appeared to 
have decayed, this speech, in its selection of evi- 
dence, and in its arrangement of facts, and its 
presentation of the whole case against the land 
system of Ireland, may be read even to-day as 
the completest and most convincing speech of 
the times on the question. He spoke in the 
House of Commons for the last time in Feb- 
ruary, 1847, anc l tne nex t day was seriously ill. 
He went abroad, and was everywhere met by 
demonstrations of respect and affection. But his 
heart was broken. A gloom had settled over 
him which nothing could shake off. He died at 
Genoa, on May 15th, 1847. His last will was 
that his heart should be sent to Rome, and his 
body to Ireland. He lies in Glasnevin Cemetery. 
The removal of his imposing personality from 
Irish politics aggravated the dissensions between 
Old and Young Ireland. 

The evils of the country grew daily worse ; 
hope from Parliament died in face of a failure so 
colossal as that of O'Connell ; and some of the 
Young Irelanders, seized with despair, resolved to 
try physical force. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 277 

The apostle of this new gospel was John 
Mitchel — one of the strangest and strongest 
figures of Irish political struggles. He was the 
son of an Ulster Unitarian clergyman ; and he 
was one of the early contributors to the Nation, 
and started a paper on his own account. In this 
paper insurrection was openly preached ; and es- 
pecially ' insurrection against the land system. 
The people were asked not to die themselves, 
nor let their wives and children die, while their 
fields were covered with food which had been pro- 
duced by the sweat of their brows and by their 
own hands. It was pointed out that the reason 
why all this food was sent from a starving to a 
prosperous nation was that the rent of the land 
lord might be paid, and that the rent should 
therefore be attacked. 

The Ministry, in order to cope with the results 
of a period of universal hunger and disease, suc- 
ceeded in having 1 a whole code of coercion laws 
passed. The Cabinet had changed its political 
complexion. Lord John Russell had been the 
leader of the Whigs in the triumphant attack on 
coercion ; and now transformed from the leader 
of Opposition to the head of the Government, 
brought in coercion bills himself. 

It has been already told how, when O'Connell 
was tried and convicted by packed juries and par- 
tisan judges, the Whig leaders in the House of 
Commons denounced jury-packing as the vilest 



278 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and meanest of expedients to crush political op- 
ponents ; within a year or so of these declarations 
the Whigs were packing juries before partisan 
judges, and were getting verdicts to order which 
sent political opponents beyond the seas. There 
was in these years in Dublin a sheet called the 
World, a blackmailing organ. Its editor — a man 
named Birch — had been tried and convicted of 
attempting to obtain hush-money from helpless 
men and women whom chance had placed in his 
power. Lord Clarendon, the Whig Lord Lieu- 
tenant, was forced to confess in a trial in public 
court some years afterwards, that he had given 
Birch between ^2,000 and ^3,000 to turn his 
slanderous pen against the leaders of the Young- 
Ireland party. 

Mitchel was brought to trial ; Lord John Rus- 
sell pledged himself that it should be a fair trial. 
He had written, he declared, to Lord Clarendon 
that he trusted there would not arise any charge 
of any kind of unfairness as to the composition 
of the juries, as, for his own part, "he would 
rather see those parties acquitted than that there 
should be any such unfairness." Yet was the 
pledge most flagrantly broken ; and the packing 
of the jury of John Mitchel under the premier- 
ship of Lord John Russell was as open, as relent- 
less, as shameless, as the packing of the jury of 
O'Connell under the premiership of Sir Robert 
Peel. The Crown challenged thirty-nine of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 279 

jurors, with the final result that there was not a 
single Catholic on the jury, and that the Prot- 
estants were of the Orange class who would be 
quite willing- to hang Mitchel without the for- 
mality of trial. 

Mitchel was sentenced to fourteen years' 
transportation ; in a few hours after the sentence 
he was on the way already to the land to which he 
was now exiled. His own expectation was that 
the Government would never be allowed to con- 
quer him without a struggle, and that his sen- 
tence would Tbe the longed-for and the necessary 
signal for the rising. But it was deemed wisest 
by the other leaders of the Young Ireland party 
that the attempt at insurrection should be post- 
poned. By successive steps, however, these men 
were in turn driven to the conviction that an 
attempt at insurrection should be made. 

Mr. Smith O'Brien was the member of an aris- 
tocratic family. His brother afterwards became 
Lord Inchiquin, and was the nearest male relative 
to the Marquis of Thomond. For years he had 
been honestly convinced that the Liberal party 
would remedy all the wrongs of the Irish people. 
But as time went on, and all these evils seemed 
to become aggravated instead of relieved, he was 
driven slowly and unwillingly into the belief that 
the legislative Union was the real source of all 
the evils of his country. By successive steps he 
was driven into the ranks of Young Ireland, and 



280 - GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

by degrees into revolution. When he, Mr. John 
Blake Dillon, Mr. D'Arcy M'Gee, and Mr. (now 
Sir) Charles Gavan Duffy were finally forced into 
the attempt to create an insurrection, they had a 
strong feeling that they were called upon to make 
it rather through the calls of honor than the 
chances of success. The attempt at all events 
proved a disastrous failure. After an attack on a 
police barrack at Ballingarry, the small force 
which O'Brien had been able to call and keep to- 
g-ether was scattered. He and the greater num- 
ber of the leaders were arrested after a few days, 
and were put on their trial. The juries were 
packed as before, the judges were partisans, and 
O'Brien and the rest were convicted, were sen- 
tenced to death, and, this sentence being com- 
muted, were transported. This was the end of 
the Young Ireland party. The party of O'Con- 
nell did not survive much longer. In 1847 there 
was a general election. The account of that elec- 
tion is one of the most depressing and most in- 
structive chapters in Irish history, and makes sev- 
eral years of Irish history intelligible. 

The idea of the Young Irelanders was an inde- 
pendent Irish party. But O'Connell's heirs, as he 
himself, taught a very different creed. It was 
O'Connell's persistent idea that his supporters 
were justified in taking offices under the Crown. 
It is easy to understand his reasons for adopting 
such a policy. When O'Connell started his po- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 281 

litical career, every post of power in Ireland was 
held by the enemies of the popular cause. All 
men in any public position, great or small, were 
'Protestants, and most of them Conservatives. 
Ireland had all the forms which in England are 
the guarantees of freemen and freedom, but these 
forms became the bulwarks and instruments of 
tyranny. It was in vain that there were in Ire- 
land judges who had the same independence of 
the Crown as their brethren in England, if, from 
political partisanship, they could be relied upon to 
do the behests of the Government. Trial by jury 
was a " mockery, a delusion, and a snare," if it 
meant trial by a carefully selected number of 
one's bitterest political and religious opponents. 
And no laws could establish political or social or 
religious equality when their administration was 
left to the unchecked caprice of political partisans. 
O'Connell thought, therefore, that one of the 
first necessities of Irish progress was that the 
judiciary and the other official bodies of the 
country should be manned by men belonging to 
the same faith and sympathizing- with the political 
sentiments of the majority of their countrymen. 
O'Connell was the leader of a democratic move- 
ment with no revenue save such as the voluntary 
subscriptions of his followers supplied. It was 
not an unwelcome relief to his cause if occasion- 
ally he was able to transform the pensioners on 
his funds into pensioners on the coffers of the 



282 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

State. At this period the Irish leader had a 
much more circumscribed class from which to 
draw his Parliamentary supporters than at the 
present day. There were large classes of the ' 
population who, while they had the property 
qualification, were in other respects entirely un- 
suited for the position of members of a popular 
party. The landlords were almost to a man on 
the side of existing abuses, and the greater num- 
ber of the members of this body whom O'Connell 
was able to recruit to his ranks were usually men 
of extravagant habits and of vicious lives, and 
politics was the last desperate card with which 
their fortunes were to be marred or mended. It 
was all very well for half a million of people to 
meet O'Connell at the monster meetings, and to 
show that he commanded, as never did popular 
leader before, the affections, the opinions, and the 
rio-ht arms of a unanimous nation. But when it 
came to the time for obtaining a Parliamentary 
supporter for his struggle with English Ministries, 
it was not upon the voice of the people that the 
decision rested. He could carry most of the 
counties, even though support of him meant sen- 
tences of eviction and of death, or of exile to his 
adherents. In the boroughs it was half a dozen 
shopkeepers, face to face with always impending 
bankruptcy, who. had the decision of an election. 
Finally, O'Connell, in this matter of place-hunting, 
as in so many others, was led astray by reliance 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 283 

upon the English Whig party. The result was 
the creation in Ireland of a school of politicians 
which has been at once her dishonor and her 
bane. This was the race of Catholic place- 
hunters. It will be found that in exact proportion 
to their success and number were the degradation 
and the deepening misery of their country; that 
for years the struggle for Irish prosperity and 
self-government was impeded mainly through 
them ; and that hope for the final overthrow of 
the whole vast structure of wrong in Ireland 
showed some chance of realization for the first 
time when they were expelled forever from politi- 
cal life. 

A profligate landlord, or an aspiring but brief- 
less barrister, was elected for an Irish constituency 
as a follower of the popular leader of the day and 
as the mouthpiece of his principles. He soon 
gave it to be understood by the distributors of 
State patronage that he was open to a bargain. 
The time came when in the party divisions his 
vote was of consequence, and the bargain was 
then struck. 

The wretched following which in the course 
of his long struggle O'Connell had gathered 
about him gave that apparent uncleanness to his 
proceedings which excited the just indignation of 
young and ardent and high-minded men and 
caused the demand for an independent Irish 
party, with no mercy to place-hunters. Richard 

17 



284 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Lalor Sheil, one of the most eloquent colleagues 
of O'Connell in the old struggle, had kept out of 
all popular movements — some said because the 
despotic will of the great tribune made life intol- 
erable to any but slaves — and had in time sunk to 
the level of a Whig office-holder. In 1846 he 
stood for Duncrarvan, and the Young- Irelanders 
demanded that he should be opposed by a man 
who was not in favor with the Government. 
O'Connell stood by his old associate, and Shiel 
was elected. 

In 1848 the famine had not passed away. The 
succeeding year was the very worst in the cen- 
tury, except 1847. But by this time Lord John 
Russell entirely changed his tune. He met every 
demand for reform with an uncompromising neg- 
ative, or with the absolute denial that any relief 
was needed. 

" While," said Lord John Russell, " I admit that, 
with respect to the franchise and other subjects, 
the people of Ireland may have just grounds of 
complaint, I, nevertheless, totally deny that their 
grievances are any sufficient reason why they 
should not make very great progress in wealth 
and prosperity, if, using the intelligence which 
they possess in a remarkable degree, they would 
fix their minds on the advantages which they 
might enjoy rather than upon the evils which 
they suppose themselves to suffer under." 

Then he made allusion to a Bill which had 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 285 

been brought in by Sir William Somerville for 
dealing with the Land question. Its proposals 
were indeed modest. It gave compensation to 
tenants for permanent improvements; but those 
improvements had to be made with the consent 
of the landlords, and it was not proposed that the 
Bill should be retrospective. But, modest as these 
proposals were, it did not gain the full approval 
of the Prime Minister, and they did not secure 
the safety of the Bill. To any such proposal as 
fixity of tenure the Liberal Prime Minister could 
offer his strongest hostility. 

"But, after all," said Lord John Russell, "that 
which we should look to for improving the rela-^ 
tions between landlord and tenant is a better 
mutual understanding between those who occupy 
those relative positions. Voluntary agreements 
between landlords and tenants, carried out for the 
benefit of both, are, after all, a better means of 
improving the land of Ireland than any legislative 
measure which can be passed." 

The "better mutual understanding" on which 
the Prime Minister relied for an improvement in 
the relations of landlord and tenant at this mo- 
ment was hounding the landlords to carry on 
wholesale clearances which, in the opinion of 
Earl Grey, were "a disgrace to a civilized coun- 
try;" which had been denounced over and over 
again by Lord John Russell himself; and which, 
in the opinion of most men, remain as one of the 



286 GLADSTONE— PARNELL 

blackest records in all history of man's inhumanity 
to man. In that year, following the exhortation, 
of the Prime Minister to voluntary agreements 
"for the benefit of both," the landlords had evicted 
no less than half a .million of tenants. 

The frightful state of things in 1847 naturally 
produced a considerable amount of disturbance. 
Many of the tenants were indecent enough to 
object to being robbed of their own improve- 
ments and went the length of revolting against 
their wives and children being massacred whole- 
sale. In short, the rent was in danger, and in 
favor of that sacred institution all the resources 
of British law and British force were promptly 
despatched. The Legislature had shown no 
hurry whatever to meet in '46 or '47, when the 
question at issue was whether hundreds of thou- 
sands of the Irish tenantry should perish of hunger 
or of the plague. Now Parliament could not be 
summoned too soon, and a Coercion Bill could 
not be carried with too much promptitude. 

It will not be necessary to recall the quotations 
which have just been made from the speech of 
Lord John Russell in opposing the Coercion Bill 
of 1846. Suffice it to say that while in 1846 he 
had objected to the Coercion Bill, " above all " 
because it was not accompanied with measures 
" of relief, of remedy, and conciliation," and that 
he had gone so far as to pledge himself to the 
principle that some such proposals ought to ac- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 287 

company any measure which tended to " increased 
rigor of the law," Lord John Russell was now 
himself proposing a measure for greatly "in- 
creased rigor of the law," not only without ac- 
companying it with any measure of "relief, of 
remedy, of conciliation" on his own part, but 
vehemently opposing any such measure when 
brought in by any other person. Lord Grey 
has been quoted for his opinion on the clear- 
ance system, and here was the clearance system 
going on worse than ever, and Lord Grey re- 
maining a member of the Ministry. 

The police were urged to unusual activity, and 
large bodies of the military even were pressed 
into the service of the landlords, seized the pro- 
duce of the fields, carried them to Dublin for 
sale — acted in every respect as the collectors of 
the rent of the landlord, and thus shared the 
honor of starving the tenants. 

In 1848 a number of Irishmen, as has been 
seen, driven to madness by the dreadful suffering 
they everywhere saw around, and by the neglect 
or incapacity of Parliament, had sought the des- 
perate remedy of open revolt. The men who, for 
wrongs much less grievous, rose in the same 
year in Hungary or France or Italy, were the idols 
of the British people, and were aided and encour- 
aged by British statesmen. But British action 
towards Ireland was to pass a Treason Felony 
Act, and to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act. 



288 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

Parliament came together. Lord John Russell 
brought forward his bill. Sir Robert Peel at once 
"gave his cordial support to the proposed meas- 
ure." Mr. Disraeli " declared his intention of 
giving the measure of government his unvarying 
and unequivocal support." Mr. Hume was 
" obliged, though reluctantly, to give his consent 
to the measure of the government." Lord John 
Russell said that "as the House had expressed so 
unequivocally its feeling in favor of the bill, it 
would doubtless permit its further stages to be 
proceeded with instanter. He moved the second 
reading." Of course the House permitted the 
further stages to be proceeded with instanter, and 
the bill, having passed through committee, "Lord 
Russell moved the third reading," which was 
agreed to, "and the bill was forthwith taken up 
to the House of Lords." "On the next day but 
one, Monday, July 26," goes on the "Annual Reg- 
ister," " the bill was proposed by the Marquis of 
Lansdowne, who concluded his speech in its favor 
by moving 'that the public safety requires that 
the bill should be passed with all possible de- 
spatch.' ' Of course the motion was accepted by 
their Lordships " that the bill should be passed 
with all possible despatch ; " and " the bill passed 
nem. dis. through all its stages." This was the 
action of liberty-loving Englishmen in 1848. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RESURRECTION. 

THE Fenian movement was largely the crea- 
tion of Irish-America. Thither had fled at 
various periods men who, having taken part in 
revolts against the intolerable tyranny of Eng- 
land in Ireland, were unable to remain in their 
own country. The Irish in America were besides 
impelled to resentment against the unhappy posi- 
tion of their country by the sight of the prosperity 
of a free Republic. Thus in many ways the new 
world in spite of its official neutrality deeply influ- 
ences the history of the old. James Stephens 
and John O'Mahony were the two main spirits in 
organizing this attempt by armed force to destroy 
British dominion in Ireland. They were able to 
gather into their ranks many earnest and brave 
men in some parts of Ireland ; they got a strong 
hold on the military ; and in lact they made a 
movement the proportions of which were a 
formidable threat against the English power. 
But the movement had many weaknesses — above 
all it suffered from the want of war material. It 
made several attempts at a rising ; but the men 

289 



290 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

were without arms and were easily overcome. 
Successive batches of leaders were tried before 
packed juries ; and there was the old story in Irish 
life of perjury, bribed informers, partisan judges; 
and then after conviction followed sentences of 
unjustifiable cruelty. Indt ed, in most cases the 
cruelty began before the sentences were passed. 
The Imperial Parliament, which could never find 
time or will to stand between Ireland and de- 
struction by eviction and emigration, turned all 
its force to the passing of coercion laws. The 
Habeas Corpus Act was suspended without cere- 
mony. On one occasion the Houses of Parlia- 
ment sat through all Saturday and even into the 
Sabbath in order to more speedily pass such a 
law. Then men were seized all over the coun- 
try, were cast into prison and were kept there 
sometimes as long as a year without being 
brought to trial. While thus confined they were 
treated exactly as if they had been convicted — in 
some cases worse ! The result was that several 
of them went insane, and afterwards more than 
one ended his own life. When the Fenian 
prisoners were convicted they were sent among 
the ordinary prisoners: thieves, burglars, mur- 
derers — the scum and refuse of English society. 

The Fenian movement as an armed revolt 
against the forces of England failed ; but as a 
trumpet-call to Ireland to rouse herself from her 
lethargy of death it succeeded. Two events came 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 291 

finally in connection with Fenianism that exer- 
cised a strong influence on the future of Ireland. 
The one was the blowing down of the prison in 
London in which a prominent Fenian prisoner 
was confined ; and the other was the rescue of 
Captain Kelly, the successor to Mr. Stephens in 
the leadership of the movement, and a companion 
named Deasy from a prison van in Manchester. 
In the blowing down of Clerkenwell there was 
unhappily a large loss of innocent life ; in the 
attack on the prison van at Manchester a ser- 
geant of police was accidentally killed. Three 
men were executed for the Manchester rescue — 
Allan, Larkin, and O'Brien. Their trial took 
place under circumstances of popular panic and 
amid a tempest of popular hatred in England. 
The evidence against them was weak ; it was 
proved afterwards to be grossly false in some 
particulars ; while on the other hand there was 
abundant testimony that the shooting of Sergeant 
Brett was accidental and unintentional. Several 
attempts were made to have the sentence on the 
three Irishmen commuted, but all failed; and they 
were executed. The event created terrible ex- 
citement all through the Irish world, wherever it 
might be. O'Mara Condon, one of the men tried 
at the same time and condemned to death, but 
afterwards sentenced to penal servitude, used the 
phrase " God Save Ireland " from the dock. Mr. 
T. D. Sullivan wrote a poem to this refrain in the 



292 GLADSTONE— PA RN ELL. 

Nation newspaper ; it spread like wild-fire, and to- 
day it may be described as the national anthem 
of Ireland. 

It was fortunate for Ireland that at this moment 
the Liberal party was led by Mr. Gladstone. The 
features, moral, physical and mental, of this re- 
markable man are already familiar to every 
American. He was the man above all others 
suited for the great occasion which had now 
arisen. There has scarcely ever been an English- 
man who exercised so great a control over the 
hearts and minds of the English people. He has 
always appealed to their higher and better emo- 
tions; and thus he has been able to raise a moral 
tempest in which they were caught up and carried 
away. The marvellous combination of different 
and apparently contradictory gifts is one of the 
striking things in his nature. There is no man 
more intimately acquainted with the technique of 
a Parliamentary and official life. He has been 
several times Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 
that position it has been his business to become 
master of the details and inner life of many of the 
trades of the country. He has been able to meet 
all comers in the debates on the smallest items 
of the annual budget. 

But there is another side to this great character. 
There is no man who understands better- the 
great heart-throbs of humanity, and that can bet- 
ter employ the chords to which they thrill. He 




SERVER. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 295 

is capable of presenting- a great public question 
to the people in the broad visible lines with which 
the masses must be approached. He is thus as 
successful on the platform as on the rioor of the 
House of Commons. In 1867 he took up the 
question of the Irish Church. 

The Irish Church did not then seem to be the 
most serious of Irish grievances. But the Irish 
Catholics had to pay for the support of the church 
of the Protestant minority. The dissenters of 
England themselves suffer under an Established 
and Endowed Church ; and accordingly Mr. Glad- 
stone was able to command their enthusiastic 
support in his crusade. 

In the course of Mr. Gladstone's great cam- 
paign against the Irish Church he had gone over 
Irish grievances, and had spoken of Irish wrongs 
in tones of sympathy that were as novel as they 
were welcome to the Irish people. It was in the 
course of these speeches, too, that he first gave 
in germ the ideas which have since borne fruit as 
to Home Rule. He said he thought Ireland 
ought to be dealt with more in accordance with 
Irish ideas. One of the first movements that 
were started now was one in favor of the release 
of the political prisoners. The admission by Mr. 
Gladstone that Ireland was suffering from griev- 
ous and intolerable wrongs made it cruel, and also 
illogical, to keep the men in jail who had been 
driven to the desperate expedient of rebellion in 



996 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

order to remedy those wrongs. The Irish people, 
too, could but admire the courage of the men 
whose love of Ireland had driven them to face 
the risk of the gallows and penal servitude. 

The movement for their release swept over the 
country like wildfire. Mighty gatherings were 
held in all the towns, and resolutions were every- 
where passed calling for an amnesty. It was this 
movement that brought back into Irish life a man 
who was destined to play an important part in 
events now about to come — Isaac Butt. He was 
chosen as the advocate of the Fenian prisoners, 
and he defended them all with indubitable energy 
and brilliant ability, and with all the forensic re- 
sources of a great advocate. Of course he failed 
to win the game against the desperate odds of 
that day. Afterwards he joined in the movement 
for the release of the prisoners — in fact was al- 
most its only prominent supporter for a while ; 
and so was forced into a position that won for 
him the affections of his country. 

The farmers were next to be aroused, and once 
more a movement was started in favor of the 
principles of tenant rights. Sir John Grey, the 
editor of Freeman's Journal, was one of the lead- 
ing public men of his day, and was a man of 
transcendent ability and tireless energy. He 
had been one of the main instruments in pro- 
curing the destruction of the Irish Church, against 
which he had waged incessant war for more than 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 297 

a quarter of a century. He now joined Butt in 
the agitation for tenant right. The demands of 
the tenants were for what are known as the three 
F's— that is to say, " fixity of tenure " or protec- 
tion against eviction ; "free sale" — that is to say. 
the right to freely dispose of their lands to who- 
soever they please; and "fair rent" — that is, a 
power to bring the question of their rents before 
a judicial tribunal. Abundant evidence has been 
given in preceding chapters of the existence of 
the necessity for all these reforms. It has been 
seen how rack-renting by the landlords for cen- 
turies has brought a mass of the Irish people to 
a condition barely removed from starvation ; and 
it has also been seen how eviction raged like a 
pestilence throughout the country. Free sale was 
rendered necessary by the curious custom mainly 
obtaining in the north of Ireland, under which the 
tenants were actually forbidden to sell their good- 
will in the land to the highest bidder. The land- 
lords there were forbidden by the custom of the 
province to turn a tenant out if he paid his rent; 
but, at the same time, they were free to make the 
tenant's remaining on his holding impossible by 
frequent and outrageous raising of rents. And 
they also exercised the right to prevent the ten- 
ant getting more than a certain fixed sum for the 
good-will. This was the origin of the demand for 
free sale. These reforms the tenantry of the 
country demanded with unanimous voice, and 



298 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the hope of obtaining them roused almost a 
frenzy of excitement throughout the country. 
Between the pronouncements of Grey and those 
of Butt on this question there was a certain 
difference. Grey was a member of the Impe- 
rial Parliament, and was hopeful that the same 
success would attend the Land agitation that had 
already rewarded him in his fight against the Irish 
Church. He therefore taught the farmers to ex- 
pect that Mr. Gladstone would be able to pass the 
House of Commons a Bill giving the tenantry of 
Ireland "the three F's ; " while Mr. Butt, on the 
other hand, more accurately appreciated the situ- 
ation. He had declared over and over again that, 
in his- opinion, it was foolish and futile to look to 
the Imperial Parliament for such a radical settle- 
ment of the question ; and he taught the farmers 
to rely on their own organization and their own 
efforts ; to go on with their movement, irrespective 
of the Parliament. 

The character of the Land Bill of 1870 added 
another proof of the incapacity of the Imperial 
Parliament to deal with Irish affairs. Mr. Glad- 
stone had the will to carry a measure of as 
large a force as the Irish people themselves could 
desire. He was supported apparently by a party 
of resistless power, for he had a majority of 
upwards of a hundred. Nevertheless he had to 
content himself with bringing in a lame and halt- 
ing measure — the defects of which were palpable. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 299 

This was mainly because the public opinion oi 
England on the Land question was utterly un- 
sound. In England the land system is very dis- 
tinct in many ofits features from the land system 
in Ireland. In Ireland labor and ownership of 
soil are indissolubly united, and certain peculiar 
tenant-rights are conceded. The agricultural 
parts of England consist of large estates split up 
into extensive farms, cultivated by a race of 
agricultural laborers that, as a rule, do not own a 
rood of land. Ireland, on the other hand, con- 
sists of a vast number of small holdings owned 
(subject to the landlord's claims) and cultivated 
by the same person. Up to this period England 
regarded her own land system as perfect. The 
depreciation of prices produced by American 
competition, and other circumstances, have 
changed this view considerably within the last 
few years, and a movement has been started for 
the purpose of linking the ownership and cultiva- 
tion of the soil in England much on the plan that 
obtains in Ireland. But in 1870 England was ex- 
ulting in the possession of the best of land systems, 
and such proposals as those that were made on 
the part of the Irish tenantry were regarded as 
wild and wicked communism. Then the landlord 
power was able, as it is able still, to impose its 
will upon the legislation of the Imperial Parlia- 
ment. In the House of Commons that power is 
still a potent influence on the Liberal side as well 



300 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

as on the Tory; for the Liberal party has among 
its foremost and most influential leaders men 
with acres as extensive and with ideas of landlord 
privileges as high as those on the Conservative 
benches opposite. The House of Lords, besides^ 
is a House entirely consisting of landlords. It 
is, in fact, an assembly mainly employed in the 
preservation of landlord rights — or landlord 
wrongs. On an English question it is possible 
occasionally to overwhelm the landlord interest 
in the two Houses in a vast springtide of popular 
feeling. But English opinion can rarely, if ever, 
be aroused to the same state of excitement and 
enthusiasm about Irish questions. Besides on 
the land question at this period English opinion 
was in one direction, Irish opinion in another. 

A result of these various circumstances was 
that the Land Bill of 1870 was a miserable shift 
rather than a settlement of the land difficulty in 
Ireland. Still it gave the sanction of law for the 
first time to the principle of a joint interest of the 
tenant with the landlord in the soil. Hitherto 
that doctrine though cherished by the people had 
been opposed by the landlords as revolutionary 
and insensate. 

But this right was acknowledged by the new 
enactment in a very half-hearted way. The ten- 
ant could claim compensation for disturbance ; 
that is to say, if he were turned out of his hold- 
ing, he could demand a certain amount of money 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 301 

from the landlord. The first defect of this was 
that compensation did not begin until after 
eviction; that is, until the tenant had been placed 
in a position in which it was impossible to suffi- 
ciently compensate him. When the Irish tenant 
is deprived of his farm he is deprived of the sole 
means of livelihood that the country affords to 
him. To evict a tenant from his holding then is 
to deprive him of all further means of making a 
livelihood within Irish shores. The only real com- 
pensation, therefore, that could be given to a ten- 
ant for eviction would be such a sum as would 
enable him to live for the remainder of his days. 
Under the Land Bill of 1870 the scale of com- 
pensation was placed at an infinitely lower figure 
than this. In all holdings that did not exceed in 
value ;£io a year, according to the Poor Law 
valuation, the tenant might claim as a maximum 
seven years' rent — and in holdings between ^10 
and ^"30 yearly valuation five years' rent. It 
need scarcely be said that the maximum was 
never reached by the tenant. The courts before 
which the cases were tried, consisting mainly of 
the friends of the landlord, sometimes of the 
landlords themselves, took care to give the ten- 
ant as low a sum as possible. 

But there was a second fatal defect the mean- 
ing of which became clearer by-and-by. Com- 
pensation for disturbance could not be given in 
cases where the tenant was evicted for non-pay- 

18 



302 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ment of rent. The Land Act of 1870 did not 
allow any inquiry as to the amount of the rent. 
The rent mi^ht have been such a rack-rent as no 
human being could possibly pay — might be a rent 
that chronically kept the tenant in a condition 
just above starvation — the normal condition of 
rack-rented tenants. The result of it was that if 
a tenant was behindhand with his rent for a day 
or for a penny he might be evicted. There was 
no power to prevent the landlord from evicting, 
and no power to prevent him from rack-renting. 
By-and-by there came to Ireland one of those bad 
harvests by which that country has been visited 
so often. Failure of one crop removed the thin 
partition that separated the tenant from starva- 
tion, and broke him down in his efforts to 
meet impossible rents, for rental was an exac- 
tion which could barely be paid at the best 
of times. For such a state of things the Land 
Act of 1870 did not provide. The non-pay- 
ment of his rent by the tenant left him absolutely 
at the disposal of the landlord. And one season 
of distress again left the population of Ireland a 
race of tenants-at-will whom a few landlords could 
starve, evict and exile. The Land Act of 1870 
had broken down, and in no place more con- 
spicuously than in the north of Ireland. The 
landlords, shorn of a portion of their privileges, 
resolved to make larger use of the relics of their 
power. They could not evict without compensa- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGG T E. .'tf)3 

tion, but they could raise the rents, and accord- 
ingly the raising of rents went on immediately 
alter the passing of the Act at a rate and to an 
extent never before paralleled. The raising of 
rents of course meant the increase of evictions, 
and the increase of evictions meant the increase 
of emigration. 

This miserable awakening- from the dream of 
hope of 1869 produced a profound impression on 
the minds of the Irish farmers. In a native Par- 
liament, responsible to native opinion, did they 
once more see there was the only chance of ob- 
taining a real settlement of their grievances. 
Another and a very different section of the 
population had been tending in the very same 
direction through a very different cause. The 
destruction of the Irish Church Establishment 
had produced a feeling of great exasperation 
among many Irish Protestants, and they began 
to look with favor on any means which would 
relieve them from the control of an assembly 
which, as they thought, had forfeited their confi- 
dence. The idea of Home Rule is supposed by 
some to be a modern thing, and the events of 
1870 are pointed to as having given it birth. 
But the idea of g-etting; rid of the Act of Union 
has existed in the Irish mind from the very hour- 
that the Act of Union was passed. The Irish 
people never consented to the act, never ac- 
knowledged the act, never for one year surren- 



304 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

dered the hope that it would one time or other be 
withdrawn. There is hardly an Irishman to-day 
whose early recollections are not of the dream ol 
getting rid of this act. The desire for the restor- 
ation of the Irish Parliament has been constant, 
persistent, intense — the only difference is that 
sometimes its manifestations have been silent, 
and at other times loud. 

On the 19th of May, 1870, a meeting took 
place at the Bilton Hotel, Dublin. The meeting 
was summoned by the following circular- 

[Private and confidential^ 

Bilton Hotel, May iyt/i t 1870. 
Dear Sir : You are requested to attend a pre- 
liminary meeting of some of the leading citizens at 
the Bilton Hotel, on Thursday evening next, at 8 
o'clock, for the purpose of devising the best plan 
(to be laid before Her Majesty) for promoting 
the future interests and welfare of Ireland. 
N. B. — The meeting will be strictly private. 

The signatures to this circular are the best 
guide as to the source whence this new movement 
came. They are those of James Vokes Mackey, 
J. P., Graham Lemon, W. H. Kerr, W. Ledger 
Erson, J. P., Honorary Secretaries. 

These gentlemen were all Protestants. It will 
thus be seen that the new movement for the 
restoration of the Irish Parliament, which is very 
frequently denounced as an anti-Protestant cru- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 3Q5 

sade, was brought into the world under Protestant 
auspices. Mr. Butt was the central figure of this 
gathering. He pointed out with the "force and 
terseness which he had at his command the 
various evils which an alien legislature had 
inflicted upon Ireland, described the daily increas- 
ing hopelessness and misery of the country, and 
finally called upon the assembly to establish a 
movement for the restoration of Irish prosperity. 
A Home Rule Association was founded, and thus 
the new movement was launched on its way. 

The Association resolved at making an attempt 
at obtaining seats in Parliament. Mr. Gladstone's 
success and speeches had the effect of blinding a 
good many people to the essential unfitness of 
the Imperial Parliament to deal with Irish affairs, 
and accordingly some classes of the population, 
and notably the clergy, in some districts were in- 
clined to resent any interference with the Glad- 
stone Liberal candidates as both ungrateful and 
unwise. 

A fundamental essential of an Irish party, if it 
is to be effective in the House of Commons, is 
that it should be independent alike of both 
English parties, that it should vote for the Whig 
or vote for the Tory in exact accordance with the 
demands of Irish interests, and that it should use 
its power standing between the Whig and the 
Tory for the purpose of raising and dethroning 
Ministries according to the demands of .the Irish 



;J06 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

cause. But the new Home Rule party consisted 
of men who would never consent to such a doc- 
trine or such a policy over and over again. Butt 
tried to get them to adopt this policy, and over 
and over again he failed. The Home Rule party 
voted together on the Irish question, it is true, but 
obviously that made no difference to the English 
parties. On all the great divisions between the 
English parties, the Tories in the Home Rule 
party voted Tory and the Whigs voted Whig. 

Another essential of a good Irish party is that 
it should not work for and should not accept 
office. As has been already pointed out, it is im- 
possible to suppose that Ireland could get her 
rights if her cause were pleaded by men who 
were asking favors from English Ministers. But 
before long a number of the Irish Home Rule 
party were openly for sale. Many of them were 
Whigs, and accordingly could not get much from 
the Tory government. But some of them were 
quite willing to take office even from political 
opponents. But it was perfectly clear that if 
such a party were allowed to go on, and if the 
Liberals came into power, a large majority of 
them would foro-et all about Home Rule and 
would join the Liberal party as servile and 
obedient followers. 

The steps have already been described by 
which the Irish people were saved from this dread 
and terrible fate. Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 307 

had fortunately become members of the new 
body. They were resolved that Ireland's hopes 
should not once more be destroyed by Tory or 
Whig slaves. They pressed forward their policy 
in season and out of season. They roused the 
country, they purified the party, they once more 
gave Ireland a chance and a hope. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OLD FIGHT AGAIN. 

WE brought up the story of the Irish move- 
ment in an earlier part of the volume to 
the year 1S79. That year again brought a crisis 
in the everlasting Land question ; and we found it 
necessary to go back in order to explain to the 
American reader how it was that the Land ques- 
tion in Ireland was different from what it was in 
America and other countries. We trust that the 
American reader will now see how the circum- 
stances of Ireland have made it necessary that 
the land law should be different in that country 
from what it is elsewhere. , 

In 1879 Ireland was once more face to face with 
a crisis. The failure of the potato crop threat- 
ened to bring about a renewal of the dreadful 
scenes which had been enacted in 1846 and 1847 
and the following years; and Parnell had thus 
been compelled to take apparently extreme steps 
for the purpose of rousing the country to a sense 
of its dangers. The country had responded to 
his call; and when in 1880 the Tories at last 
gave it an opportunity of pronouncing its voice, 
308 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 309 

it at once showed that Parnell represented its 
views ; that his policy was its policy ; and that the 
men it wanted to send into Parliament were men 
who would follow his methods and adopt his 
plans. But the country and Parnell — as so often 
had happened before— were not in a position to 
give full effect to their wishes. Parnell had to 
fight the election with limited resources; there 
was the same difficulty about candidates as in 
1874; and Parnell, besides, had not been able to 
get home until the elections had already been 
three weeks in progress. The result of it all was 
that while the country was perfectly sound and 
of one mind and one heart, the representatives 
chosen were of very heterogeneous material. 
Some of the old Whigs who had degraded and 
demoralized the party were again in the National 
ranks, and thus there were two sections at the 
very start ; honest and independent men, who had 
gone into politics purely with a view to serve the 
cause of Ireland without fear or favor or affec- 
tion ; and the dishonest and the half-hearted and 
the office-seeking, mainly concerned with what 
they could make out of Irish politics for their 
own miserable selves. 

The two sections were not long in coming into 
collision. The leader of the Irish party is se- 
lected every year. Indeed he is not called leader 
officially at all. His real title is chairman of the 
party ; and the chairman is chosen like all the 



310 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

other officials of the party at the beginning of 
every Parliamentary session. Mr. Shaw had 
been chosen in succession to Mr. Butt ; and when 
the party met in Dublin it had to decide the ques- 
tion whether or not Mr. Shaw would be re-elected 
to the position. Mr. Shaw since this time has 
fallen upon evil days. Let him then be spoken 
of kindly and considerately. The defects of Mr. 
Shaw were those of the head rather than those 
of the heart. He was sincerely anxious for the 
welfare of Ireland and for the triumph of the 
Home Rule cause. A stout, easy-going man, with 
an amiable temper and a not very active mind, he 
was of opinion that a little soothing talk and 
amiableness of action would bring round every- 
body to the reasonable way of thinking ; and that 
thus the bitter Orange Tory would join in the 
chorus of approval to the legislation which de- 
creased his rents and annihilated his power. Mr. 
Shaw, to put it briefly, believed in the gospel of 
mush. Such a man was plainly unsuited for the 
battle on which Ireland was about to enter. The 
moment was coming when Ireland was either to 
fall back into landlordism, rack-rent, eviction, 
starvation, or to go forth to a future of independ- 
ence, prosperity and tranquil labor. On the side 
of the landlord was the British Empire. Fleets, 
armies, judges, juries, jails — all these agencies of 
government were at the disposal of the landlord 
caste. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 311 

Nevertheless at this vital juncture the easy- 
going Mr. Shaw was very near being appointed 
leader. The different men who had been elected 
were at the time personally unknown to each 
other. When they entered the Council Chamber 
of the city of Dublin, where this great gather- 
ing was taking place, they had had no oppor- 
tunity whatever of meeting in consultation and 
of exchanging ideas and preparing a united line 
of action. Some of them, indeed, who were most 
favorable to the claims of Mr. Parnell were sup- 
posed to be hostile. 

Nor had Mr. Parnell himself taken any trouble 
to put forward his claims. It is the singular 
fortune of this extraordinary man to have ob- 
tained all his power and position without effort 
on his part, and apparently without gaining any 
particular pleasure from his success. He had 
been down in the country on the night before the 
meeting, and did not reach Dublin until morning. 
Up to that time, Mr. Parnell had not seen any of 
even his own friends. But some of them had 
met on their own hook ; had talked over the 
situation ; and had in a general way adopted a 
line of action. This was to put forward, and if 
possible to carry, Mr. Parnell as leader. The 
gentlemen who formed this nucleus for the meet- 
ing of the following day were : Messrs. John 
Barry, Comins McCoan, Richard Lalor, James 
O'Kelly, Mr. Biggar and T. P. O'Connor. Mr. 



312 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Healy was not then a member of Parliament ; 
but he was Mr. Parneli's Secretary, and he was 
present at the meeting. Some of these gentle- 
men met Mr. Parnell the next morning in the 
street, as he was on his way to the city hall. He 
did not receive the proposal that he should be 
elected very cordially. His own idea was, and 
re mainrd till an advanced period of the meeting, 
that Mr. Justin McCarthy should be elected; as 
being a man extreme enough in opinion for the 
Parnellites, and moderate enough in counsel for 
the followers of Mr. Shaw. 

A debate of some length took 'place, with the 
final result that twenty-three voted for Mr. Par- 
nell, and eighteen for Mr. Shaw. The Lord 
Mayor of Dublin, Mr. Edmund Dwyer Grey, 
presided over the meeting at its start. When 
the election was over there was an interval. 
After this Mr. Parnell quietly took the chair. 
Thus simply Mr. Parnell was installed in the 
great position of Leader of the Irish people. 

The English papers did not take much notice 
of the election at the moment ; but it was felt 
that the Imperial Parliament would be met in a 
spirit of uncompromising demand that might 
lead to gre_tt events and to stormy times. Be« 
fore the meeting the Irish members had con- 
eluded to discuss the land question ; and at once 
it became apparent that there were differences of 
opinion that might lead to an ultimate split be- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 315 

tvveen the two sections. Mr. Shaw could not get 
beyond the old demand for the " Three F's ; " 
and insisted that this should be the battle-cry of 
the new party. But some of the followers and 
friends of Mr. Parnell insisted that the time had 
past for dealing with the Irish question on these 
lines, and that a bold move should be at once 
made towards the proprietorship of the soil by 
the peasantry of Ireland, as by the peasantry of 
France and Belgium. 

When the party came to London, another, 
though not at first sight a very serious, difference 
of opinion arose. As the result of the general 
election, Mr. Gladstone had come back with a 
splendid majority. The fight had taken place on 
the foreign policy of England — and especially on 
its policy in the East and in Asia. Ireland was 
not mentioned often, though Lord Beaconsfield, 
with characteristic unscrupulousness, had at- 
tempted to get a majority on an anti-Irish cry. 
The Liberals were uncommitted so far as Ireland 
was concerned, but there was a general under- 
standing that a Ministry which contained such a 
man as Mr. Gladstone would be inclined to view 
the demands of Ireland with favor. However, 
the Parnellites knew that a Liberal Ministry has 
dangers as well as advantages. The tribe of 
Irish office-seekers was already on the watch, and 
it was quite possible that before very long it 
would be offering its mercenary service to the 



316 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Ministers. In that way the party would be de- 
moralized ; and Ireland once more would be 
hopeless because betrayed. 

These and other considerations underlay the 
question which now came to be discussed between 
the different sections of the Irish party ; that 
question was where the Irish members should 
take their seats. It should be explained to the 
American reader that in the House of Commons 
the rule is for the party in power to take its 
place on the right of the Speaker's chair. When 
the Liberals are in power they are on the right 
of the Speaker. When the Tories come in they 
pass over to the opposite side, and sit on the 
left of the Speaker's chair. The right is the 
Ministerial, the left the Opposition side of the 
House. The benches on each side are divided 
about half down by a passage ; this passage is 
known in Parliamentary phraseology as the gang- 
way. Hitherto the Irish members had sat on the 
benches below the gangway on the opposition 
side of the House. There could be no objection 
to this course as long as the Liberals were out of 
power; then the Irish were naturally a part of 
the general opposition to the Tory Ministers. 
But the Liberals were now in office ; they were 
sympathetic ; and the question rose whether the 
Irish members should, by remaining on the op- 
position side of the House, make open declara- 
tion of opposition to them as to the Tories. The 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 317 

Parnellites eave "Yes" as the answer to this 
question ; the section led by Mr. Shaw answered 
"No." 

An American reader at first sight will perhaps 
be inclined to smile at the importance attached to 
this apparently trivial point; but there were im- 
portant issues underneath the question of the 
seats. The Government was friendly to Ireland, 
and no Minister had kindlier intentions than Mr. 
Gladstone. But the Ministry and Mr. Gladstone 
were the creatures of the political forces around 
them; and in 1880, as in every year since the 
Union, the wishes of Ireland were on one side 
and the political forces of England pretty solid 
on the other. Ireland wanted a radical, almost 
a revolutionary change in the Land laws; she 
wanted equally a radical if not a revolutionary 
change in the relations of the two countries; 
and to these changes the majority of Mr. Glad- 
stone's supporters were just as inimical as the 
bitterest Tory. If Ireland, then, were to pursue 
Radical ends she must come into collision with 
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberal Ministry, painful 
as that might be. If, on the other hand, the in- 
terests of English parties and not those of Ire- 
land were to be considered supreme, the Irish 
would be justified in raking their places among 
the Liberals. The Parnellites thought — and 
events proved the justice of their views — that 
it was impossible to serve the God of Irish 



318 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

rights and the Mammon of English parties. 
Mr. Parnell and his friends resolved to remain 
in opposition; Mr. Shaw and his followers sat 
among- the Liberals like good Ministerialists. 
One of the consequences foretold by Mr. Par- 
nell of this action soon came about. Before 
long Mr. Shaw found place after place become 
vacant beside him ; his friends had sold them- 
selves for place and pay. 

Another and more important of the prophecies 
of Parnell was also realized before long. His con- 
tention was that between the demands of an Irish 
Nationalist party and the will of an English Lib- 
eral Ministry there would come irreconcileable 
differences that must lead to hostile collision. 
The very opening day of the session proved 
this. It will be remembered that the Land 
question had reached a very acute stage in Ire- 
land. The farmers once more were demanding 
the protection of their lives and property from 
the destruction brought upon them by plunder- 
ing landlords, and the country had just narrowly 
escaped from the jaws of famine. At the very 
moment, indeed, when Parliament met there were 
still 800,000 men and women in the receipt of re- 
lief from the various funds raised by charitable 
organizations throughout the world. But, never- 
theless, all this tragedy had not come to the 
knowledge of the English authorities ; and the 
Imperial Parliament were as ignorant of it all as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 319 

if it had never existed. The knowledge in Entr- 
land on the question was confined to a vague im- 
pression that there was some distress in Ireland, 
but then that odious and tiresome country was 
always more or less in distress ; and there was a 
strong impression that Mr. Parnell had made 
very violent and wholly unjustifiable speeches. 
Of course all this simply meant that the farmers 
were once again putting forward claims that no 
British Ministry could possibly consent to ; that 
wicked agitators were stirring up the people to 
impossible demands ; that murder was walking 
abroad through the country; and that if anything 
were wanted in Ireland it was a new Coercion 
Bill by which the Irish people could be brought 
to a condition of good sense and good temper. 

Meantime it may be as well to pause here for 
a moment and hear from the Irish people them- 
selves what it was that they demanded. In April 
of 1880 there had taken place a convention in 
Dublin of the Land League, and there the follow- 
ing platform of Land reform had been laid down : 

To carry out the permanent reform of land ten- 
ure we propose the creation of a Department or 
Commission of Land Administration for Ireland. 
This Department would be invested with ample 
powers to deal with all questions relating to land 
in Ireland. (1) Where the landlord and tenant 
of any holding had agreed for the sale to the 
tenant of the said holding, the Department would 

19 



320 GLADSTONE— PARNELL; 

execute the necessary conveyance to the tenant 
and advance him the whole or part of the pur- 
chase-money ; and upon such advance being made 
by the Department such holding would be deemed 
to be charged with an annuity of £§ for every 
^100 of such advance, and so in proportion for 
any less sum, such annuity to be limited in favor 
of the Department, and to be declared to be re- 
payable in the term of thirty-five years. 

(2) When a tenant tendered to the landlord 
for the purchase of his holding a sum equal to 
twenty years of the Poor Law valuation thereof 
the Department would execute the conveyance 
of the said holding to the tenant, and would be 
empowered to advance to the tenant the whole 
or any part of the purchase-money, the repay- 
ment of which would be secured as set forth in 
the case of voluntary sales. 

(3) The Department would be empowered to 
acquire the ownership' of any estate upon tender- 
ing to the owner thereof a sum equal to twenty 
years of the Poor Law valuation of such estate, 
and to let said estate to the tenants at a rent 
equal to 3*^ per cent, of the purchase-money 
thereof. 

(4) The Department or the Court having juris- 
diction in this matter would be empowered to de- 
termine the rights and priorities of the several 
persons entitled to, or having charges upon, or 
otherwise interested in any holding conveyed as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 32;$ 

above mentioned, and would distribute the pur- 
chase-money in accordance with such rights and 
priorities ; and when any moneys arising from a 
sale were not immediately distributed the Depart- 
ment would have a right to invest the said moneys 
for the benefit of the parties entitled thereto. Pro- 
vision would be made whereby the Treasury could 
from time to time advance to the Department such 
sums of money as would be required for the pur- 
chases above mentioned. 

The doctrines laid down in this programme 
were afterwards in the main adopted by the Im- 
perial Parliament, but not until there had been a 
vast amount of fierce struggling and bitter suf- 
ferincr. 

o 

This platform formulated demands for the per- 
manent settlement of the land problem. Mean- 
time there was a point which demanded attention 
and immediate legislation. What was to be done 
with the people whom the disastrous failure of the 
crops made incapable of paying the rents ? It was 
now that the defects of the Land Act of 1870 
came out more clearly than ever before. A vast 
proportion of the Irish tenants were at the mercy 
of the landlords, and the landlords were merciless. 
Evictions were going on all over the country. 
The mass of poverty and hopeless misery was 
being daily increased, and if the landlords were 
allowed to go on at the present rate, there was 
fair chance of a national disaster. To all these 



324 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

things the reply of the Government was absolutely 
nothing. The Queen's speech contained para- 
graphs upon all possible subjects, and with regard 
to almost every nation in the Queen's dominions, 
but of Ireland not one word. 

It was discovered that upon the Irish Land 
question the Queen's speech was a perfect reflex 
of the state of mind among the Queen's ministers. 
On the question of Ireland the ministerial mind 
was a blank. Mr. Gladstone is too frank a man 
not to reveal to the public at some time or other 
the workings of his mind. Speaking four years 
afterwards to his constituents in Midlothian, he 
used the following - remarkable words : 

" I must say one word more upon, I might say, 
a still more important subject — the subject of Ire- 
land. It did not enter into my address to you, for 
what reason I know not ; but the Government 
that was then in power, rather, I think, kept back 
from Parliament, certainly were not forward to 
lay before Parliament, what was going on in Ire- 
land until the day of the dissolution came and the 
address of Lord Beaconsfield was published in 
undoubtedly very imposing terms. ... I frankly 
admit that I had much upon my hands connected 
with the doings of that Government in almost 
every quarter of the world, and I did not know — 
no one knew — the severity of the crisis that was 
already swelling upon the horizon, and that 
shortly after rushed upon us like a flood." 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 325 

This certainly is one of the most astonishing 
confessions that were ever made by a Minister, 
and it throws as much light as any other speech 
of Mr. Gladstone upon the vexed question as to 
whether the union of the Legislatures is good for 
England or for Ireland. Of all the Ministers that 
ever reigned in England, there has never been 
one of more voracious reading or more restless 
activity or who more nearly approached to om- 
niscience than Mr. Gladstone. He could speak 
of a passage in Homer, a poem of Dante, a con- 
ceit of Voltaire ; of a forgotten passage in the 
history of Greece or in the discoveries of Sir 
Robert Peel ; he can discourse upon the deepest 
secrets of theology and the highest problems of 
statesmanship or the smallest points of detail, 
such as railway fares and freight rates, with equal 
ease and with equal command. Yet here was a 
great national tragedy taking place in Ireland, 
with all the attendant horrors of a mighty national 
convulsion, and Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minis- 
ter of England, within three hours' reach of Ire- 
land by steam, was absolutely ignorant of every- 
thing going on there. That one fact alone was 
one of the most potent arguments that could be 
used in favor of removing Irish affairs from the 
mercy of English incapacity. 

The Irish members immediately after they 
heard the Queen's speech found themselves face 
to face with a question of dispute about the seats 



326 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

in the House of Commons. Were they to be 
patient with the Ministry, to consult its ease and 
its interests and to postpone the pressing de- 
mands of Ireland until such time as ministers 
might consider opportune and convenient? It 
was held that such a course would be a betrayal 
of the interests and the hopes of Ireland. In the 
face of a tragedy so terrible, of sufferings so keen, 
as were racking Ireland it was decided that delay 
was death, and that it was their duty as Irish 
representatives to press forward the claims of 
Ireland without the least regard for anything save 
Ireland's supreme agony and mighty need. Ac- 
cordingly they at once proposed an amendment 
to the Queen's speech insisting that the Land 
question of Ireland required immediate dealing 
with. Their demands were regarded either as 
wicked or ridiculous. Here was a Ministry just 
come into office scarcely warm in its place and 
with difficulties to encounter and errors to amend 
in all parts of the world! But the reply of the 
Irish members was that if there were an Irish 
Parliament the voice of Ireland would demand 
and would receive immediate attention ; and that 
it was not the fault of Ireland that an overworked 
Ministry and a Parliament with all the world to 
survey had the sole control of Irish interests 
and Irish fortunes. . . . Mr. Shaw joined the 
Government in its policy ; and so the division 
between the two sections of the Irish party 



THE GREA1 IRISH STRUGGLE. 327 

widened to an impassable chasm, and from this 
time forward they rarely if ever kept together. 

The amendment to the Queen's speech was of 
course lost, but the Irish party were not yet done 
with the question. They immediately brought in 
a bill the object of which was to suspend evictions 
for a certain period until Ireland was able to re- 
cover from the stunning blow of the ruined 
harvest. The bill by some miracle was allowed 
to escape blocking and came before the House 
of Commons at two o'clock one morning. Mr. 
Gladstone saw now that the question could no 
longer be avoided, asked for a postponement of 
the Irish Bill, and in a few days afterwards 
announced that the Government themselves were 
prepared to deal with the question which this 
bill raised. And thus within a few days after the 
opening of Parliament the Parnell party had 
gained an important victory; and instead of 
Ireland being without attention or without relief 
it was placed in the forefront of the Ministerial 
programme. 

This was the way in which the measure known 
as the Disturbance Bill was brought into being*. 
This bill gave the power to County Court Judges 
to suspend evictions in cases where, owing to the 
distress, the tenant was unable to pay the exist- 
ing rent. The bill led to fierce discussions — the 
landlord party on both sides of the House oppos- 
ing it vehemently. In the end it passed through 



328 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the House of Commons ; but when it got to the 
House of Lords it was rejected by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. It had not gone through the House 
of Commons, however, without extorting from 
Mr. Gladstone some very remarkable words with 
regard to the state of Ireland. Thus he brought 
out clearly the relentless cruelty of the landlords. 
" If," he said on this subject, " we look to the total 
numbers we find that in 1878 there were 1,749 
evictions; in 1879 2,607; and, as was shown by 
my right honorable and learned friend, 1,690 in 
the five and a half months of this year — showing 
a further increase upon the enormous increase 
of last year, and showing in fact unless it be 
checked that 1 5,000 individuals will be ejected 
from their homes without hope, without remedy 
in the course of the present year." " By the fail- 
ure of the crops during the year 1879 the act 
of God had replaced the Irish occupier in the 
condition in which he stood before the Land Act. 
Because what had he to contemplate? He had 
to contemplate eviction for his non-payment of 
rent ; and, as a consequence of eviction, starva- 
tion ; and it is no exaggeration to say, in a coun- 
try where the agricultural pursuit is the only pur- 
suit, and where the means of the payment of rent 
are entirely destroyed for a time by the visitation 
of Providence, that the poor occupier may under 
these circumstances regard a sentence of eviction 
as coming, for him, very near a sentence oi 
death." 




SOLICITING AID FOR THE STARVING. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 329 

Very remarkable consequences followed from 
the rejection of the Disturbance Bill by the House 
of Lords. There were 1 5,000 people about to be 
evicted from their homes — about to have decreed 
against them by the landlords sentences of death. 
The tenant was left, therefore, to use Mr. Glad- 
stone's words again, "without hope, without 
remedy." 

The Government on their side ought never to 
have brought in the bill, or else, having brought 
it in, ought to have staked their existence as a 
government upon it. For a while it seemed that 
the man mainly responsible for the government 
of Ireland would adopt this course. Mr. Forster 
declared that if the landlords continued to evict 
starving tenants he should feel it his duty to come 
to Parliament for some protection for the tenants, 
and, if that were not afforded, to resign his office. 
But Mr. Forster was a man bold in word and 
weak in action. In a few days afterwards he was 
assailed by the Tories, and he withdrew his words 
and laboriously explained them away. This was 
the state of affairs when the memorable recess 
of 1880 opened. One thing the government had 
done was to appoint a commission to inquire into 
the question, and especially into the operation of 
the Land Act of 1870. Mr. Parnell had now one 
ot the most perplexing problems that he has ever 
faced in his whole public career. The Irish leader 
knew that if he were to attempt to take the place 



330 GLADSTONE— PA RN ELL. 

of the law he ran the risk of brineino- both the 
people and himself into collision with the au- 
thorities, and a collision might defeat the whole 
movement and throw it back once more into the 
slough of hopeless despond. At the same time 
the people must have protection. It is a wonder- 
ful testimony to his skill, his exhaustless resource, 
his unfailing nerve, his infallible judgment, that 
he was able to conduct his camoaion and at the 
same time to preserve the tenants against the 
evils by which they were threatened and to keep 
them all the while out of the meshes of the Brit- 
ish law. He preached again and again the gos- 
pel that what the tenants were to look to was not 
the British Parliament. He pointed out how that 
body had over and over again cheated Irish hopes, 
and how in its present constitution it was incapa- 
ble even with such a Minister as Mr. Gladstone 
of carrying out really acceptable reforms. The 
result was that the Land League became a mag- 
nificent organization with a membership almost 
conterminous with the farming population of the 
country. In this way the Irish people were 
brought to such a position that the landlords and 
not the tenants became the suppliants, and the 
tenants were able to approach Parliament, not 
with whines upon their lips, but with defiant de- 
mands. 

The uprisal of slaves against ancient despotism 
is always accompanied by a certain amount of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 331 

crime, usually of a brutal character. The revolu- 
tion of 1880 had not escaped the general fate, but 
on the whole it was singularly free from grave 
offence. There was never in Irish history a pe- 
riod in which there was so much distress, so much 
excitement, and so little crime side by side. But 
the landlords had managed to get hold of the 
always hostile London press. Every offence, no 
matter how small, was reported at full length, and 
the English people were led to believe that Ire- 
land at the moment was a pandemonium. 

Mr. Forster went backwards and forwards be- 
tween England and Ireland during this period. 
He was very greedy of applause and newspaper 
eulogy, and was deeply influenced by the attacks 
that were universally made upon his administra- 
tion in Ireland. In the Cabinet itself there was 
division of opinion. The Radicals were opposed 
to coercion, and the Whigs were rather favorable 
to it. During one of the struggles a very char- 
acteristic incident took place, which will show how 
the whole question of Ireland and its fate is dealt 
with in imperial councils. There was a struggle 
on the first day of a Cabinet meeting that lasted 
two or three days. Mr. Forster was very mild 
with regard to the state of Ireland, and repre- 
sented that the accounts in the newspapers were 
grossly exaggerated, and that the country was far 
from being in as bad a state as people on the 
English side of the channel were led to believe. 



332 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The next day he represented Ireland as a pande- 
monium, and hoarsely called for coercion. The 
struggle ended in a drawn battle. In the mean- 
time Ministers were left in a painful state of sus- 
pense, and the majority of them held their peace. 
The newspapers all the time kept howling louder 
and louder. Their lies and exaggerations were 
not corrected by official and authoritative denials. 
Judgment against Ireland was, in fact, allowed to 
go by default, the result of which was that the 
demand for coercion became almost unanimous. 
Mr. Forster allowed himself to be carried away. 
He was able to bring forward in favor of his de- 
mand an argument and a fact that seemed irre- 
sistible to men unfamiliar with the real state of 
affairs. Coercion had been refused to him in the 
September of 1880. The outrages in that month 
were only 167. In October also there was a 
struggle against him. The outrages then were 
only 286. But in November he was able to point 
to the fact that they had risen to 561, while in 
December they reached 867. The tide of crime 
apparently kept rising every hour. 

The first step was taken in a new policy by 
bringing an action against Mr. Parnell and sev- 
eral of his colleagues for conspiracy. The only 
conspiracy in which Mr. Parnell had been engaged 
was that of saving the tenants, whom Mr. Glad- 
stone had described as without hope and without 
remedy, as lying under sentences of eviction 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 3.'>5 

almost equivalent to sentences of starvation, and 
of endeavoring to raise to the dignity of freedom, 
prosperity and manhood a class whose awful suf- 
ferings for centuries have been described in the 

o 

preceding pages. It is scarcely necessary to say 
that no properly chosen tribunal of Irishmen 
would pass any verdict upon Mr. Parnell except 
that of having been, at a most dangerous crisis, 
the best friend of his country; and the trial, after 
winding its slow length along for many weeks, 
ended in disagreement of the jury. 

In January, 1881, Parliament was called to- 
gether, nearly a month earlier than was usual, in 
order to give the Government time to pass 
measures of coercion. It was well known that 
the Irish party would meet these proposals with 
obstinate resistance and would prolong the strug- 
gle to the very uttermost limits the rules of the 
House would allow. The struggle began on the 
very first night of the session. The Irish mem- 
bers resolved to encrasfe m the debate on the 
Queen's speech as long as they possibly could. 
Four amendments were proposed in succession, 
and each amendment was discussed at extraordi- 
nary length. The Parnell party numbered but 
thirty-five members, and of these but a small pro- 
portion were practised speakers. It thus came to 
pass that, at most, a dozen men had to keep the 
Imperial Parliament at bay for night after night, 
and for week after week. At last the debate on 



336 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the Queen's speech was allowed to be closed, and 
Mr. Forster had an opportunity of proposing his 
Coercion Bill. The first step in the House of 
Commons is to obtain leave to introduce a meas- 
ure and have it printed. This stage, on most oc- 
casions, is not the subject of prolonged debate or 
of division. But the Parnellites were resolved 
that not a single point should be surrendered 
without resistance, and they therefore raised a 
debate of great length upon the introductory 
stage of the bill. Meanwhile a very extraordinary 
occurrence had taken place. Mr. Forster had 
carried his point by arguments drawn from the 
vast increase in the number of crimes in the 
months of October, November and December. 
These startling totals had broken down the wav- 
ering purpose of the Cabinet, and had them solid 
for coercion. But it soon appeared that when 
Mr. Forster presented his totals he at the same 
time gave no information as to how they were 
made up. His colleagues and the public gen- 
erally assumed that when Mr. Forster spoke of 
561 crimes in November and 867 in December, 
he was speaking of serious crimes — murder, high- 
way robbery, shooting with intent to kill, mutila- 
tion of cattle and other offences of the same kind. 
Mr. Forster had, in introducing the Coercion 
Bill, given a number of the serious offences — and 
some of the offences were very brutal indeed — 
and left the impression upon the mind of every- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 337 

body that these were typical instances. When, 
however, the Blue Book came to be presented, in 
which the crimes were given in detail, it was dis- 
covered that a number of these terrible crimes 
were nothing more serious than threatening let- 
ters sent by foolish or mischievous persons. An 
examination of the outrages provoked shouts of 
laughter. Thus the very first outrage that stood 
on the Blue Book for the month of October was 
as follows : A portion of the front wall of an old 
unoccupied thatched cabin was maliciously thrown 
down, in consequence of which the roof iell in. 
Another outrage was the breaking of a wooden 
gate with stones. Another, the breaking of sev- 
eral panes of glass in an unoccupied house. The 
sixth outrage reported from County Derry ran, 
"Three perches of a wall maliciously thrown 
down." The hundredth in the West Riding of 
the County Galway was, "A barrel of coal-tar 
maliciously spilled." It was further discovered, 
on looking into the return of outrages, that very 
often one crime, by a process of multiplication, 
was manufactured into four, five, six and seven. 
It was very easy to reach a total of 561 or 867. if 
offences like these were dignified with the title of 
outrages and were made to perform the same 
operation as the stage army of a scantily manned 
theatre. 

These things were brought before the House 
of Commons by Irish members and by English. 



338 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Mr. Gladstone looked surprised, bewildered, and 
had to confess that the facts were a revelation to 
him. It was perfectly clear that Mr. Forster had 
obtained coercion by garbled reports and doc- 
tored statistics. But it was too late to go back. 
By this time, too, the resistance of the Irish mem- 
bers had provoked a good deal of passion in the 
House of Commons, and still more outside. The 
Irish members felt bound to defend the liberties 
of their country, thus unjustly assailed, step by 
step, and inch by inch, and English opinion could 
not understand their action. The result was that 
the few Radicals who had been inclined to stand 
by the Irish members in the first instance were 
compelled to desert them under the pressure of 
public opinion, and the Irish party were left to 
fight the battle alone. A number of violent 
scenes took place. The struggle reached a 
climax on Monday, January 31st. The question 
still discussed was leave to introduce the bill. 
The Irish members demanded an adjournment at 
the usual hour on Monday night. It was refused, 
and both sides prepared for an all-night sitting. 
The struggle went on all through the night, then 
all through Tuesday, with many wild and pas- 
sionate scenes. Finally, at nine o'clock on Wed- 
nesday morning, it was brought to a close. The 
Speaker, by an exercise of authority never before 
practised in Parliament, declared that the debate 
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THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 339 

own will. The Irish members vainly protested, 
and when they found the Speaker determined to 
go on, they left the House in a body, shoutino- 
" Privilege ! Privilege ! " For a while they de- 
bated whether they should return to the assembly 
or not, but they finally decided that it was their 
duty to fight on. A few hours afterwards there 
came another startling episode in the great strug- 
gle. Just before the House met on Thursday a 
rumor was whispered around that Mr. Davitt had 
been sent back to penal servitude. The Irish 
members were shocked and angered by this 
wretched piece of political vengeance on a politi- 
cal opponent. Mr. Parnell raised the question in 
the House of Commons. He was answered 
curtly, almost insolently. Then he interrupted 
the Prime Minister, was called to order, refused 
to obey the ruling of the chair, and was suspended 
by the Speaker and ordered to leave the House. 
The same thing- happened in the case of Mr. Dil- 
lon and of many other Irish members, with the 
final result that the following were suspended: 
Messrs. Parnell, Finigan, Barry, Biggar, Byrne, 
Corbet, Daly, Dawson, Gill, Gray, Healy, Lalor, 
Leamy, Leahy, Justin McCarthy, McCoan, 
Marum, O'Donoqhue, the O'Gorman Mahon, W. 
H. O'Sullivan, O'Connor Power, Redmond, Sex- 
ton, Smithwick, A. M. Sullivan, and T. D. Sul- 
livan. 

In their absence on the previous Wednesday 
20 



;}40 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

leave had been granted for the introduction of 
the Coercion Bill. The measure was still op- 
posed and the Prime Minister brought in rules 
which gave the Speaker the power to close the 
discussion not only on a certain day but at a cer- 
tain hour. Despite of all this, it was not until 
nine weeks from the opening of the session that 
Mr. Forster had passed through the third reading 
of the two Coercion Bills — the one suspending 
the Habeas Corpus, the other authorizing the dis- 
armament of the Irish people. 

It was in the session thus inauspiciously opened 
that the Land Bill of 1 88 1 was introduced. The 
measure was one which would have been accepted 
with frenzied joy in 1852, and which in 1870 
would probably have been accepted as a full and 
final settlement of the question. It granted "the 
three F's," and thus rescued the Irish tenant at 
last from rack-renting and from capricious and 
arbitrary eviction. But the time had passed when 
the Irish would be satisfied with such a moderate 
settlement. The doctrine of obtaining the owner- 
ship of the soil, through the aid of the state, had 
taken a firm hold of their minds, and a bill which 
would have been more than they would have" ex- 
pected if they had trusted to Mr. Gladstone and 
the Imperial Parliament alone was less than they 
demanded now that they had an organization of 
their own and an independent Irish party. 

However, apart from the deficiency of the Land 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 341 

Bill of 1 88 1 as a final settlement of the Land 
question, it was most defective with regard to a 
very important point in the immediate future. 
The landlords having exacted impossible rents 
had always the tenants in their debt, and instead 
of acting after the generous and sensible manner 
of landlords in other countries, they had kept 
their debts upon their books in order to always 
retain the tenant in a state of abject depend- 
ence. Some landlords had actually kept out- 
standing against the tenants debts dating from 
1846 and 1847. The tenant was in most cases 
half a year in arrear, and the rent that he thus 
owed left the tenant subject to eviction at any 
hour that the landlord pleased. It may be said 
that the Landsdowne estate had a bad eminence 
in this respect as in many others. It is perfectly 
clear that there was no use whatever in giving 
the tenants fixity of tenure if these detestable 
arrears still remained. The landlords had noth- 
ing to do but to bring an action for ejectment, 
and every tenant who owed a farthing throughout 
the country could be mercilessly evicted. It 
turned out that there were nearly 100,000 ten- 
ants in the country in this position, and thus the 
Land Bill to them was as the Dead Sea fruits 
turned to ashes. These facts were brought again 
and again before the attention of the House of 
Commons, but Mr. Forster refused to properly 
consider them, and the result was that the Land 



342 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Bill passed in spite of the protest of the Irish party. 
Another and a graver objection was, that the 
Land Courts to which the question of fixing the 
rent would be referred were courts held nearly 
altogether by the nominees of landlords or their 
friends. Lord Selborne, then Lord Chancellor, 
declared that the Land Bill would restore and not 
diminish the value of the landlords' property. 
Lord Carlingford also announced that the pro- 
visions of the bill would cause the landlords no 
money loss whatever. It is scarcely necessary to 
remind the reader that the fact dwelt upon by the 
Irish leaders was that the rent of Ireland was far 
and away beyond the capacity of the Irish tenants 
to pay; that this rental kept them in a state of 
hopeless poverty, and that, unless therefore there 
were a revolutionary reduction in the rent-rolls, 
the tenants had no chance whatever of reaching a 
condition of prosperity, not even an ordinarily 
decent living. 

These various facts presented to Mr. Parnell 
and his colleagues a very important problem. 
Would they or would they not dissolve the Land 
League? would they or would they not advise 
tenants to go into the Land Courts? They 
held two conventions in succession ; at those con- 
ventions there was a large party that denounced 
the Land Act, and declared that the only safety 
for the tenant was to keep out of it altogether. 
This party had in their minds the idea that the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 343 

time had come for a final and decisive conflict 
with landlordism, and that if any time were spent 
in skirmishes or truces the golden opportunity 
would pass. This party had in their minds the 
idea that the proper thing to do was to raise the 
" No Rent " cry ; and in that way to bring the 
landlords to their knees, and so to compel a 
transfer of the ownership of the soil on reason- 
able terms to its tillers and occupiers. Mr. Parnell, 
however, had very serious doubts of the success 
that would attend the No Rent movement — doubts 
that were justified by subsequent experiences. 
He adopted a more cautious policy, and sug- 
gested that the tenants should employ a double 
method. In the first place they should test the 
Land Courts by sending a number of test cases 
before them, and if the courts gave just decisions 
that they should then be encouraged to go on. At 
the same time the organization was to be main- 
tained in its full strength ; and to any person who 
knew the circumstances of Ireland this policy 
would at once be understood. The Commissioners 
of Land Courts, with the exception of the three 
heads of the departments, were officials appointed 
for certain limited periods. Their proceedings 
had to be approved, and could be, and frequently 
were, brought before the Houses of Parliament 
for discussion and criticism. Accordingly the 
acts of the sub-commissioners were subject to final 
review by a tribunal which was almost entirely on 



344 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the side of the landlords. As a matter of fact, 
the landlords took full advantage of the power of 
reviewing the action of the Land Commissioners 
which the Land Act gave. Every commissioner 
that did anything like justice or any approach 
to justice to the tenant was made the subject of 
question after question to the ministers, and 
when the time came for renewing the terms of 
office all commissioners were dismissed to a man 
who had showed sympathy with the tenant. Mr. 
Parnell therefore properly judged that unless 
there were an immense pressure on the other side 
the Land Courts were sure to do injustice as be- 
tween landlord and tenant. Mr. Parnell, however, 
was not allowed to pursue his policy. The Govern- 
ment, afraid that the Land Act would break down, 
resolved upon a bold stroke. On the morning 
of Thursday, October 13th, 1881, Mr. Parnell was 
arrested under the Coercion Act and was placed 
in prison. Mr. John Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly and Mr. 
Sexton were apprehended immediately afterward, 
and Mr. William. O'Brien, the editor of United 
Ireland, soon followed them. The League was 
suppressed, a " No Rent " manifesto was issued 
in reply, and so there began a fierce struggle 
between coercion on the part of the Government 
and resistance on the side of the people. 



CHAPTER X. 

IN THE DEPTHS. 

THERE now began a fierce and merciless 
war between the Irish people and the Brit- 
ish authorities. Coercion was given full swing, 
and went on its way from excess to excess till 
there was scarcely a method of despotism not 
resorted to. One of Forster's first acts was to 
employ a number of retired or dismissed military 
men to be intrusted with the duty of putting 
down all free expression of opinion. Mr. Clifford 
Lloyd was the very worst specimen of this gang 
— a man of violent temper, of ferocity, and of an 
utter want of scruple. The character of Mr. 
Lloyd may be estimated from the fact that in spite 
of his powerful patronage he had afterwards to be 
withdrawn from Egypt; his manners were too 
offensive even for the mild Egyptian to endure. 
This ruffian proceeded to make the most reckless 
use of the powers surrendered to him. He ar- 
rested a village almost to the last man ; he insulted 
women in the grossest manner. If they stood in 
the street they were accused of obstructing the 
pathway, or on some other frivolous charge were 

345 



346 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

haled before a magistrate and subjected to indig- 
nities which in civilized countries are reserved for 
the abandoned. Gaining audacity as he went 
along, Mr. Lloyd had brought before him some 
of the best women of the country who had em- 
ployed themselves in bringing succor or in inspir- 
ing courage in the hapless tenants who were now 
abandoned to the mercy of their landlords. 

As far back as Edward III. an act was passed 
the object of which was to put down the vagrancy 
which then flourished. The act was loose in its 
terms so as to be able to catch hold of all tramps 
and prostitutes whom the authorities wished to 
incarcerate. It was under this obsolete act that 
some of the most refined and heroic women of 
Ireland were sent to solitary confinement for 
periods often of six months. Children twelve 
years of age and crying after the manner of chil- 
dren were placed in the dock on the charge of 
endangering the peace of the queen. There is 
in Ireland a popular song known as " Harvey 
Duff." It is a satire of a rather harmless charac- 
ter directed against the police. The singing of 
" Harvey Duff" was raised in these days into high 
treason, and boys and girls who ventured to hum 
it as they passed the sacred form of a policeman 
were first brutally ill-treated — in one case a girl 
twelve years of age was stabbed — and then 
brought before the. magistrates. 

In the meantime every newspaper that said a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 347 

word against these acts was promptly suppressed, 
and every man who uttered a protest was sent 
to prison. Man after man was seized who had 
no hold on public affection. The gaols were 
crowded, and finally the numbers of persons im- 
prisoned without prospect of trial reached the 
enormous total of a thousand and upwards. 
Evictions at the same time proceeded apace. If 
the Irish people were a foreign enemy at the 
gates, they could not have been assailed with a 
more lavish expenditure of money and force. 
Foot soldiers, cavalry, artillery, commissariat vans, 
blue jackets, vessels of war, to say nothing of 
1 3,000 armed policemen — all these were placed 
at the disposal of the landlords and assisted in 
driving out starving tenants to the ditch. But 
this odious system did not even bear the fruits 
for which it was intended. Crime, instead of de- 
creasing, doubled throughout the country and 
became daily of a fiercer and more terrible char- 
acter. The Irish people, in fact, were at bay, and 
resorted to those savage methods of reprisal which 
among all peoples are the answers of impotent 
despair to the brutal omnipotence of a despotism. 
In 1880, before coercion came into operation, 
there were eight cases of murder in Ireland and 
twenty-five of firing at the person. In 1881, dur- 
ing the half of which coercion was in existence, 
there were seventeen murders and sixty-six cases 
of firing at the person. In the first six months 



348 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

of 1882, when the regime of coercion was at its 
worst, there were fifteen murders and forty cases 
of firing at the person. The trials showed clearly 
that all serious offences were actually twice as 
many since the introduction of coercion as they 
were before. 

Public opinion in England can stand Russian 
methods of government for only a certain length 
of time, and the accounts of these various epi- 
sodes in government at last began to produce 
a strong reaction. Indeed, the question was 
taken up by the Tory party, and a member of 
that party, Sir John Hay, brought forward a 
resolution denouncing imprisonment without trial. 
Mr. W. H. Smith, an ex-Cabinet Minister, put 
upon the table of the House a resolution setting 
forth a peasant proprietary as the only solution 
of the Irish Land question. Here, indeed, was 
Nemesis with a vengeance ! The contention of 
the Land League and Mr. Parnell throughout was 
that a peasant proprietary was the only solution 
of the Land problem. It was mainly for preaching 
that doctrine that Mr. Parnell and a thousand 
other men had been placed in gaol, and here, 
now, was one of the leaders of the landlord 
party coming forward to declare that Mr. Parnell 
and his colleagues were right. Ministers took 
alarm. None of them were in real sympathy 
with Mr. Forster's regime; they were doubtful 
of its wisdom, and could not help being convinced 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 349 

of its want of good result. The consequence 
was, that Mr. Parnell was released, and that the 
Government undertook practically to do every- 
thing that he had demanded before his imprison- 
ment. It had been declared, as has been seen, 
by his party, that the Land Act was worthless to 
the vast proportion of the tenants, owing to the 
heavy arrears they owed to the landlords. Mr. 
Gladstone undertook to bring in an Arrears Bill, 
for the purpose of wiping out their debts and 
thus bringing them within the compass of his 
land legislation. Mr. Parnell and his colleagues 
had complained and clearly shown that the clause 
of the Land Act with regard to the improvements 
made by tenants did not sufficiently protect 
the tenants. Mr. Gladstone undertook to amend 
the Land Act of 1881 in this regard. Mr. 
Parnell and the Land League had declared that 
a peasant proprietary was the only practical and 
final settlement of the Irish Land question. Mr. 
Gladstone undertook to establish the principle of 
a peasant proprietary. Finally, Mr. Parnell pro- 
tested against coercion as a method of govern- 
ment. Mr. Gladstone undertook to drop coercion, 
and began by dismissing Lord Cowper and Mr. 
Forster. In fact, every single one of Mr. Par- 
nell's demands was listened to and accepted. He 
and the British Empire had stood in deadly and 
merciless conflict, and unarmed and from his 
gaol he dictated the terms of capitulation. 



350 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

When Mr. Parnell appeared in the House of 
Commons everybody came forward to greet 
him. Treacherous friends and open enemies 
rushed up to shake his hand, and the House of 
Commons bowed before him. Everybody felt 
that almost the last stage in the Irish conflict had 
been reached. A leader who had proved his 
power over the people to such an extent, and had 
achieved so complete a victory over such tre- 
mendous odds, might fairly demand that the 
government of the country should be put into 
his hands ; and, in fact, everybody felt that the 
release of Mr. Parnell meant the speedy advent of 
Home Rule. 

But the evil fortune that has so often blighted 
the Irish cause on the threshold of victory in- 
tervened, and in one day the hopes of Ireland 
were blasted, and the cause of Irish liberty was 
thrown back for years. Lord Frederick Caven- 
dish had gone over to Ireland as the new Chief 
Secretary, and as the bearer of the new message 
of peace to the Irish people. He was a man of 
amiable temper, and of high purpose, and well 
fitted in every way to be the medium of recon- 
ciliation. On the very day of his arrival in Dub- 
lin, he and Mr. Bourke, the Under Secretary, 
were assassinated in the Phoenix Park. This was 
on May 6th. It turned out afterwards he was 
unknown to those who killed him, and that his 
death was due to the accidental circumstance of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ^51 

his being alone with Mr. Bourke. The tragedy 
created terrible excitement and an^er in Ene- 
land. A cry for vengeance was raised, and the 
Ministry had to -bow before the storm, and, hav- 
ing dropped coercion, were obliged once more to 
introduce it. Mr. Parnell was assailed with spe- 
cial bitterness ; and Mr. Forster was once more 
elevated to the position and eminence which he 
had forfeited. In a remarkable passage of his 
evidence by James Carey, a man who played a 
prominent part in the conspiracy, and afterwards 
betrayed his companions, here is an extract 
from his evidence in cross-examination by Mr. 
Walsh : 

Q. When you became a member of the Order 
of Invincibles, was it for the object of serving 
your country that you joined? A. Well, yes. 

Q. And at that time when you joined with the 
object of serving your country, in what state was 
Ireland ? A. In a very bad state. 

O. A famine, I think, was just passing over 
her? A. Yes. 

O. The Coercion Bill was in force, and the 
popular leaders were in prison ? A. Yes. 

Q. And was it because you despaired of any 
constitutional means of serving Ireland that you 
joined the Society of Invincibles ? A. I believe 
so. 

However, England was not in a humor to listen, 
and the Crimes Act was passed in the House of 



352 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Commons after a vain resistance by the Irish 
members. This act enroled juries to be packed 
and other methods to be adopted by which in 
despotic countries prisoners are cajoled or ter- 
rorized into eivino- evidence true or false. A 
number of men were put upon their trial before 
juries consisting entirely of landlords exasperated 
by the loss of power and by the crimes committed. 
A number of men were in this way convicted and 
were hanged. A sickening doubt afterwards 
arose as to whether these men were innocent or 
guilty, and this was especially the case with re- 
gard to a man named Myles Joyce. His case was 
debated over and over asjain in the House of 
Commons, and it is still a question of doubt as to 
whether he was condemned justly. A man named 
Bryan Kilmartin was sent to penal servitude on 
a charge of having shot at a man with intent to 
murder. The judge declared emphatically that 
the man was guilty beyond all doubt. Attempt 
after attempt to have his case investigated failed; 
but finally the matter was brought before the 
House of Commons. It was proved that a man 
who had gone to America immediately after the 
crime, and who had on his death-bed confessed to 
the offence, was the real culprit, and Bryan Kil- 
martin, proved innocent, had to be released. 

In Parliament all this time the Irish party op- 
posed as strenuously as they could the ministry 
of Mr. Gladstone. They thought that the pro- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ;};-,;; 

ceedings in Ireland were entirely unjustifiable. 
ror a long time they voted steadily on all critical 
occasions against the Ministry, with the result 
that they more than once endangered its exist- 
ence. The influence which the Irish party was 
able to exercise over these divisions is worth con- 
sidering under present circumstances, when the 
enemies of Ireland seem to be once more in a 
majority. The Liberal party at the start num- 
bered 351, and then, besides, they had the con- 
stant support of 23 Home Rulers who had de- 
serted the Irish party. The Tories, on the other 
hand, had only 238, and the Home Rulers num- 
bered about 2,7- The Government thus were 374 
against 275 — a majority of 99. Yet on a division 
on the Cloture resolution the Government major- 
ity was reduced to 39. On one of the votes this 
majority was reduced to 28; on another it was but 
14, and finally, on June 8, 1885, the majority en- 
tirely disappeared, and the Government was left 
in a minority and had to resign. Before this time, 
however, the Government had passed two meas- 
ures of the utmost importance to Ireland. They 
had reduced the franchise, and in this way had 
raised the electorate from a quarter of a million 
to three-quarters of a million. They at the same 
time swept away by the Redistribution Bill a num- 
ber of the small and rotten boroughs. The re- 
sult of it was that the mass of the Irish people 
had for the first time an opportunity of making 



354 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

their views known, and of returning a really united 
party to Parliament. 

The advent of the Conservative Government 
produced some excellent changes. Shrewd ob- 
servers say that a weak Conservative adminis- 
tration is, of all others, the most radical. De- 
pendent for existence on the mercy of the Liberal 
Opposition, it brings forward liberal measures, and 
these measures, instead of being opposed and ob- 
structed by the Liberal Opposition, are supported 
and accelerated. Then a Conservative ministry 
has always the House of Lords at its disposal. 
Whatever bill a Conservative minister advocates, 
the House of Lords accepts. On the other hand, 
a Liberal ministry, desirous of passing any reform, 
has to have at its back a tide of almost revolu- 
tionary passion in order to overcome the obsti- 
nate resistance of the Tory Opposition. And so 
it happened in 1885 with the Tory Government. 
The Tory party is the party of landlords and of 
coercion, yet the moment they came into office 
they dropped all mention of coercion. They even 
promised an inquiry into some of the cases of 
alleged miscarriage of justice. They passed a 
Laborers' Act, which enabled the laborers of 
Ireland to obtain better house accommodation. 
And, above all, they passed a large bill for the 
purpose of transforming the rent-paying occupier 
into a peasant-proprietor. 

The eeneral election came in the November of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 355 

1885, and it was the desire of the Irish party to 
bring into power a weak Conservative government 
dependent for its existence upon the Irish party. 
They contended that such a government would be 
willing to give Ireland Home Rule, and that if 
only it could make up its mind to do this it could 
pass the measure without any of the friction or 
passion which would accompany similar proposals 
on the part of the Liberals. They received 
abundant proofs that the Tories were disposed to 
grant Home Rule. Lord Carnarvon, then Tory 
Lord-Lieutenant for Ireland, sought and obtained 
an interview with Mr. Parnell, and the Tory 
minister and the Irish leader were practically 
agreed that Home Rule was just and necessary. 
Lord Randolph Churchill gave abundant indica- 
tions that his views were the same, and expressed 
in private his firm conviction of both the justice 
and the certainty of Home Rule. These private 
expressions of views were confirmed by the omis- 
sion in all the public speeches of the Tories of 
any hostility to the claims of Ireland, with occasion- 
ally a vague hint that these claims should not be 
summarily dismissed. The result of all this was 
that at the polls there was an alliance between 
the Tories and the Irish voters in England. This 
alliance secured the Tories a large number of 
seats, but not sufficient to give them a chance of 
carrying on the government. They were in a 

large minority, but they had in their own ranks 
21 



356 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

twenty or twenty-five Orangemen of the nar- 
rowest type, who would have deserted them the 
first moment they indicated an intention to deal 
justly with the claims of Ireland. There was an 
internal struggle in the Cabinet, with the result 
expressed by Lord Randolph Churchill with cynic 
frankness : " I have done my best for you and 
have failed; and now, of course, I shall do my best 
against you." Lord Carnarvon, a conscientious 
man, resigned office. The Tory party resolved 
to abandon the hopeless task of keeping a govern- 
ment together, and on January 26th announced 
that they would bring in a bill for land purchase, 
and a bill for suppressing the National League. 
They knew, when making this announcement, 
that they would compel a hostile vote that night 
against them on an amendment brought forward 
by Mr. Jesse Collings in favor of what is known 
as the policy of three acres and a cow. Their 
anticipations were realized ; they were defeated, 
and Mr. Gladstone was called upon to form a 
ministry. 

In the debate on the amendment of Mr. Jesse 
Collings little had been said about Ireland, but it 
was very well known that Ireland was the 
subject which was really under discussion. An 
extraordinary impetus had been given to the hopes 
of Irish patriots by certain events. During the re- 
cess and the election a paragraph appeared in 
several newspapers to the effect that Mr. Glad- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 357 

stone had come ta the conclusion that the con- 
cession of the Irish Parliament should be agreed 
to, and that he was already engaged in working- 
out the details of a Home Rule scheme. The 
report was denied with some appearance of au- 
thority immediately afterwards, but the im- 
pression remained on the public mind that Mr. 
Gladstone was ready to deal with the question 
of Home Rule. Upon some people this had a 
most bewildering effect, but to nobody who had 
closely watched Mr. Gladstone's career was this 
announcement so startling after all. As far back 
as 1868 he had declared that Ireland ought to be 
governed more by Irish ideas ; and Home Rule 
is really but the logical development of this 
statement. Over and over again, too, on sub- 
sequent occasions, he had declared that he was 
prepared for an extension of self-government to, 
Ireland. On this point he has been assailed with 
a good deal of coarse and unjustifiable vituper- 
ation. But Lord Hartington, who, though he has 
attacked Mr. Gladstone's policy, has always 
acted towards him with scrupulous fairness, has 
acknowledged that Mr. Gladstone's mind has 
evidently been going towards Home Rule for 
many years, and that his present policy could be 
fairly inferred from previous utterances. The 
words, indeed, of a manifesto which he issued to 
the electors immediately before the general 
election contain an exact description of the prin- 



358 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ciples of the Home Rule Bill which he sub- 
sequently introduced. 

During the election he had called upon electors 
to give him such a large majority as would enable 
him to be independent of the Parnell party. But 
really there is no contradiction between the two 
attitudes. Mr. Gladstone was anxious that Ire- 
land should get Home Rule ; but at the same 
time he did not want Ireland to get such a meas- 
ure of Home Rule as would be dangerous to the 
interests or the unity of the Empire. 

The question was to be dealt with in a spirit 
of fairness to Ireland, certainly ; but as an En- 
glishman Mr. Gladstone cannot be blamed for 
insisting that it should be dealt with in a spirit of 
fairness to England also, and he thought a strong 
Liberal government was better calculated to 
•treat the subject with equal fairness to England 
and to Ireland than a weak Tory government. 
Mr. Gladstone may have had in his mind the 
thought that when he proposed Home Rule it 
would oroduce a considerable amount of dissent 

L 

in the Liberal party, and would certainly be op- 
posed by a considerable number of the members 
of that body. The larger the party the more obvi- 
ously he could afford to shed them, and yet be 
able to carry his bill. 

It is objected by English opponents that he 
proposed Home Rule too soon. It is objected 
by Irish Nationalists that he proposed it too late. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 359 

But a minister is not a missionary nor a propa- 
gandist ; it is his duty to take up questions as 
they arise and to deal with them when they are 
ripe for settlement; and it was not until 1885 
that the Home Rule question was in any degree 
ready for settlement. The Irish people were 
always, in their hearts, in favor of Home Rule ; 
but Ministers can only judge of a people's desires 
by the representatives they choose. It is quite 
true he cannot, to use a phrase once popular in 
America, "go behind the returns." But the re- 
turns in Ireland had certainly not given anything 
like a trustworthy account of the feelings of the 
Irish people. 

There can be little doubt that for a long time 
Mr. Gladstone thought that Home Rule was a 
passing caprice — that a persistence in such good 
measures as he was willing to give would destroy 
the desire to be governed by a Parliament in 
Dublin instead of by a Parliament in Westminster. 

It is but quite recently indeed that any English 
statesman has grasped the central fact of Irish 
politics — that the desire for self-government is in- 
destructible and must therefore finally prevail. 
It is true that in 1874 Mr. Butt came in with his 
60 Home Rulers ; but these Home Rulers were 
most of them what Mr. Gladstone would call good 
Liberals, regarding Home Rule as an extreme de- 
mand, by the leverage of which more moderate 
concessions could be obtained. 



360 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

In 1880 a considerable section of that party 
sat upon the same benches as Mr. Gladstone's 
own followers, and were as docile to the com- 
mands of the Whip as any Liberal. Gladstone 
at the same time might point to the fact that the 
Parnellites were but a small section of the Irish 
representation ; that at the beginning of the Par- 
liament of 1880 there were but little above one- 
third of the full total of 103 Irish members, and 
that at no time did they exceed more than forty- 
five, and this was considerably below one-half of 
the full number of Irish representatives. When, 
however, they claimed altogether eighty-five out 
of 103, there could be no doubt that when they 
demanded to be regarded as the mouthpiece 
of Irish views, they made the claim good, and 
thus justified Mr. Gladstone in regarding the de- 
mand as coming from a united nation. However, 
the more violent opponents he had made were 
not prepared to listen to any defence of his con- 
duct. There came upon him a terrific cyclone of 
political hatred. All the London journals, with 
one exception, daily poured upon him a stream 
of poisonous abuse. He was denounced as a 
Judas who had sold his country to the dynamiter 
for a temporary occupation of the Premiership. 
He found in his own party some of his most bitter 
assailants. Lord Harrington had broken loose 
from him, and had previously, when the reports 
of his readiness to concede Home Rule were cir- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. :\Q\ 

dilated, declared that he would have no part 
whatever in granting such a boon. Mr. Bright 
had stood alone for some years, having differed 
with the Prime Minister on the Egyptian war, and 
was hostile to Mr. Gladstone's new departure. 
Mr. Chamberlain was still more hostile. At one 
time he had been regarded as one of Ireland's 
most vehement supporters, and as ready to go 
farther than Mr. Gladstone himself on the path 
of concession. During the long struggle on co- 
ercion within the Cabinet in the days of Mr. 
Forster, Mr. Chamberlain was always spoken 
of as one of those who had resisted those pro- 
posals to the very last. It came as a startling 
revelation to the world that Lord Spencer, after 
his trying personal experiences in Ireland, had 
joined Mr. Gladstone in the opinion that Home 
Rule was the only settlement of the Irish difficulty. 
Mr. John Morley had been known as an out- 
spoken friend of Ireland for many years, and 
during the election campaign had used language 
which clearly proved his favorable attitude to- 
wards the principles of Home Rule. Mr. Goschen, 
another prominent Liberal, on the other hand, 
proved to be a rampant enemy to the Irish cause. 
It was amid these difficulties with open foes and 
dissenting friends that Mr. Gladstone assumed 
office once more, in January, 1886, and started on 
the greatest, the most glorious enterprise of his 
life. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE GREAT HOME RULE DEBATE. 

BEFORE entering on a description of the 
scenes which took place in the House on 
the Home Rule Bill in 1886, it will be well to 
give a rapid sketch of the principal persons en- 
gaged in the mighty struggle, and first of all let 
us endeavor to give a portrait of Mr. Gladstone. 
Mr. Gladstone is marked, physically as well as 
mentally, for a great leader. He is about five 
feet nine inches high, but looks taller. His build 
is muscular, and but a very short time ago he was 
able to take a hand at felling a tree with young 
men. There was a time when he was one of the 
most skilful of horsemen. He is still a great 
pedestrian, and there scarcely passes a day that 
he is not to be seen walking. He walks with his 
head thrown back, and a step firm and rapid. 
His countenance is singularly beautiful. He has 
large, dark eyes, that flash brilliantly even in his 
age. Deep set and with heavy eyelids, they 
sometimes give the impression of the eyes of a 
hooded eagle. He has a large, exquisitely-chis- 
elled nose. The mouth also is finely modelled. 
362 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 



363 



The head is unusually large. It was in early 
youth covered with thick, black hair. The brow 
is lofty and broad, and very expressive. The 
complexion is white almost as wax, and gives the 
face a look of wonderful delicacy. The face is 
the most expressive in the House of Commons. 
It reflects every emotion as clearly and rapidly as 
a summer lake its summer sky. When Mr. 
Gladstone is angry his brow is clouded and his 
eyes shine. When he is amused his face beams. 
When he is contemplative his lips curl and his 
head is tossed. His air is joyous if things go 
well, and mournful when things £o ill- thouo-b 
when the final trial comes and he stands con- 
vinced that he must meet absolute and resistless 
defeat, he looks out with dignified tranquillity. 

All the passions of the human soul shine forth 
by his look and gesture. His voice is powerful, 
and at the same time can be soft, can rise in 
menace or sink in entreaty. Allusions have been 
made to the vast and heterogeneous stores of 
learning which are in this single man's brain. He 
has extraordinary subtlety of mind, so that he 
is able to present a case in a thousand different 
lights. And it is this faculty that has sometimes 
given him the unpleasant and undeserved repu- 
tation of sophistry and of duplicity. He speaks 
as a rule with considerable vehemence and ges- 
ticulates freely. To speak of him as the first 
orator of the House of Commons is to give a 



364 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

very inadequate statement of his position. Over 
and over again in the course of his career he has 
turned a battle, when he was seemingly just 
beaten, into a victory ; and nobody is ever able to 
say how things will go until Mr. Gladstone has 
first spoken. Lord Beaconsfield up to the time 
of his death presented to the people a contrast 
and a counter attraction. The late Tory leader 
was a poor charlatan at bottom, but he was a bril- 
liant and a strong-willed man that had passed 
through a romantic and picturesque career. 
With the death of Lord Beaconsfield passed 
away the last man who could venture to be 
brought into rivalry with Mr. Gladstone, and so 
he stands alone as the last survival of a race of 
giants. His effect thus upon people outside of 
Parliament is almost as great as upon those who 
are inside its walls. There seems to be some- 
thing so lofty and pure in his purpose that men 
follow him with something of fanaticism. The 
restlessness of his energy produces equally 
earnest work for his followers, and his own exhaust- 
less funds of enthusiasm and sunny optimism 
make other men passionate strugglers for the 
right. The hand of Gladstone has changed the 
map of Europe, and first really gave birth to the 
Christian nationalities in the East which are now 
emerging into freedom and light after ages of 
dark thraldom under the Mussulman. In addition 
to these things he is credited with immense parli- 
amentary skill. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 355 

He began his advocacy of Home Rule with an 
extraordinary prestige. The difficulties were felt 
to be gigantic, dangerous pitfalls to be everywhere 
around ; but men had faith in the star of Glad- 
stone, and he had faith in it himself also. His 
nerve never fails. Physically he is one of the 
very bravest of men, and he has never been 
known to show, under any circumstances, the 
least sign of physical fear. Whatever might take 
place in the coming contest, one thing was certain : 
Mr. Gladstone having once put his hand to the 
plow would not turn back until he had guided it 
to its ultimate destination. 

Mr. John Morley was the most remarkable 
man of the Ministry, next to Mr. Gladstone, and 
was. regarded as a most important champion of 
Home Rule. Mr. Morley affords one of the first 
instances in recent years of great political 
triumphs won by a literary man. He was in 
Parliament a little over three years when he was 
selected for a Cabinet office, a rapidity of promo- 
tion almost unparalleled. He had, however, 
already given strong proofs of his fitness for 
high political office. For years he had occupied 
a foremost place among English writers on po- 
litical and philosophical questions. The son of a 
hard worked professional man, he started out 
with few advantages, was poor, and has remained 
poor. He was educated at Oxford, and afterwards 
spent some time on the continent. His first ap- 



366 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

pointment of importance was as editor of the 
Morning Star — a journal of a robust radicalism 
that taught justice to Ireland at a time when 
these doctrines were not fashionable ; and he was 
successor in this position to Mr. Justin McCarthy. 
After 1867 Mr. Morley was appointed editor of 
the Fortnightly Review, a periodical which is 
known all over the world for its extremely high 
value as a collection of writings from the eminent 
men on all the profound problems of the present 
day. Mr. Morley produced book after book, 
dealing with the prominent figures of the French 
Revolution, a period that he had profoundly 
studied. Of those best known are the biog- 
raphies of Voltaire and Rousseau. There are 
scarcely any two biographies in the English 
language more delightful to read. The style is 
clear, but full of fervor and of glow. The biog- 
raphy of Rousseau, especially, is more like a 
brilliant romance than a description of a man 
who really lived and moved upon the earth. 
Anybody can, even in his busiest or darkest 
hours, sit down and devour page after page of 
the splendid narrative. The Fortnightly Review 
contained occasional essays on economical and 
other subjects from Mr. Morley's pen. He was 
one of Mr. John Stuart Mill's earliest disciples, 
and did much to propagate Mill's philosophy. In 
1880 the Pall Mall Gazette changed both pro- 
prietors and policy. From the mouth-piece of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 367 

Jingo Toryism it became an organ of staunch 
radicalism, and Mr. Morley was its first editor in 
this new character. As long as he held the po- 
sition the Pall Mall Gazette was the best journal 
in London. Mr. Morley had been among the first 
among Englishmen to pierce the heart of the 
Irish mystery. Years and years ago he had 
made up his mind that the only possible solution 
lay in the direction of some acceptance of the de- 
mand for self-government. He had not expressed 
this opinion obtrusively, for he is a man of 
cautious temperament ; but he had sown the 
seed judiciously, and led his readers gradually 
to the conclusion that Home Rule was just and 
inevitable. Then he entered the House of Com- 
mons for Newcastle-on-Tyne — a constituency con- 
sisting mostly of toilers in great iron-works or 
in mines. His radicalism exactly suited such a 
constituency. 

He was not long in Parliament before he took 
up a prominent position. He was opposed to the 
Egyptian expedition, and to the whole Egyptian 
policy of the late government. He is a man of 
transparent honesty of purpose, and of a political 
courage ready to face any emergency, and to 
attack even his own friends in order to see right 
triumphant. The definiteness of his opinions on 
the Irish question naturally suggested him as the 
best man to carry out the policy which Mr. Glad- 
stone had now set his mind upon. It was no 



368 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

surprise, therefore, to the world that when the 
Ministry was made up he was chosen for the 
important post of Chief Secretary. In Parliament 
Mr. Morley has not yet reached the full height of 
his abilities. He has all the qualities that make 
a great debater. His language flows from him 
smoothly and with perfect clearness. Nobody 
can ever have the least doubt as to what he 
means. His diction, too, while it scorns all mere- 
tricious ornament and seeks out simple and 
familiar phraseology, shows all the elevation of a 
great master of style and a fine scholar. 

The defects of Mr. Morley are those which 
arise from want of training and experience. He 
entered Parliament at a comparatively late period 
of his life. This gives to his style a certain want of 
that suppleness required in an assembly where men 
have to learn all the arts of ready fence. Some- 
times he suffers from over-careful elaboration of 
his speeches, and this is considered a grave defect 
in the House of Commons. That assembly is not 
particularly patient of scholars or of philosophers, 
and loathes professors ; and in any assembly men 
are most effective when they speak with the 
greatest spontaneity. 

Parliament is like journalism ; it wants, above 
all other things, actuality — the incident, the opin- 
ion of the hour. The future of Mr. Morley in 
English politics can be a great future if only he 
himself will so elect. His honesty is implicitly 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 369 

believed in ; no one denies the brilliancy of his in- 
tellect or the soundness of his judgment. In man- 
ner he is modest, never capable of being provoked 
into the insolence of success or the dictatorship 
of position. The one great obstacle, perhaps, to 
Mr. Morley's reaching the highest of all positions 
is himself. He is, like many other literary men, 
characterized by grave and wholly unjust self-dis- 
trust, and there is a dash of pessimism in his tem- 
perament, as there is a good deal of pessimism in 
his creed. He has none of the keen appetite for 
power, the proud enjoyment of small triumphs, the 
joy of a masterful temperament in moving men 
as pawns on the board. 

Mr. Morley is about the middle height, and very 
spare. His face is long, with clearly marked fea- 
tures, lined here and there, but on the whole re- 
markably young-looking. His eyes are of a gray- 
ish-blue, and are calm and thoughtful. Mr. Mor- 
ley has not a trace of asceticism in his character, 
but his looks are those of a man who cares little 
for the table, but a good deal for spiritual possi- 
bilities. 

The mention of Mr. Morley's name suggests 
that of Mr. Chamberlain. By many events of the 
last years these two men have been placed in 
contrast, and, to a certain extent, in rivalry. One 
of the many motives assigned for the strange 
vagaries of Mr. Chamberlain is his jealousy of 
Mr. Morley as a future rival. The feelings be- 



370 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tween the two men are more bitter perhaps than 
those between any other two men of the same 
party. Mr. Morley and Mr. Chamberlain were 
for years close personal friends. Mr. Chamber- 
lain was the person who gained most by the alli- 
ance. In 1874 he was still in Birmingham ob- 
scurity — a man successful in business, it was true ; 
an alderman, afterwards the mayor of the town. 
But provincial reputations travel slowly to Lon- 
don, and when they reach there are despised. In 
1874 Chamberlain stood for Sheffield as an 
avowed Home Ruler, and professed sentiments 
much in advance of general opinion at the time 
upon the question of Ireland. He was not suc- 
cessful. He wrote an article in the Fortnightly 
Review, which was a wild attack upon the mani- 
festo with which Mr. Gladstone had gone to the 
constituencies. Mr. Chamberlain probably thought 
the best way to elevate himself was to attack 
those more prominent than he. The article sug- 
gested the subject of a leader to the Daily News, 
in which Mr. Chamberlain was treated by no 
means tenderly, and in which his opinions were 
ridiculed as the outpourings of a pretentious 
upstart. But Mr. Morley stood by his friend. 

In time Mr. Chamberlain was elected to Parlia- 
ment, and started by proposing a ridiculous scheme 
of licensing. Then he brought himself into 
prominence by attacks upon the Tory Govern- 
ment of the day, and by something like an open 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 371 

quarrel with the Marquis of Hartington, then the 
leader of the Liberal party. This was the period 
when Mr. Parnell was making his crusade against 
flogging in the army and navy. Mr. Chamberlain 
at the time was one of Mr. Parnell's warmest ad- 
mirers, and he was one of the few Englishmen 
who regarded the policy of obstruction as justified 
by the circumstances of Ireland. In the agita- 
tion against " the cat " he saw a good elec- 
tioneering cry, and he went in for it zealously 
and vehemently. Meantime he put himself at 
the head of a great election machine — a con- 
trivance hitherto 'unknown in English politics. 
Up to this time candidates had been allowed to 
come before constituencies without consulting 
anybody — or, at any rate, after consultation with 
a few leading men. The system had its faults, but 
it also had its virtues, for it safeguarded the ab- 
solute freedom of the electors and of candidates. 
Mr. Chamberlain and his friends determined to 
establish a system of associations throughout the 
country which had the choice of candidates after 
the manner of an American convention. These 
associations were then federated together, and 
their head-quarters were placed at Birmingham. 
Mr. Chamberlain was the main spring and the 
controlling force, and in this way he raised him- 
self to the position of a great political power. 
Contrary to the expectations of everybody he 

was raised to the presidency of the Board of 
22 



372 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Trade when Mr. Gladstone came to make his 
Ministry. He did nothing in office to justify his 
elevation, for he is almost entirely devoid of con- 
servative statesmanship. He brought in a Bank- 
ruptcy Bill and passed it, but this was his solitary 
achievement. 

Up to the breach with Mr. Gladstone a few 
months ago he steadily advanced in popular fa- 
vor. He has all the instincts and all the abilities 
of the demagogue. He appeals to the greed, to 
the needs, to the passions of the masses. His 
gospel to them is a gospel of loaves and fishes. 
During the struggle between the House of Lords 
and the House of Commons on the question of 
the franchise, he openly incited to violence, with 
the result that a meeting where Sir Stafford 
Northcote and Lord Randolph Churchill were to 
attend was broken up by gangs of roughs. To 
agricultural laborers he has offered the bribe 
known as " three acres and a cow," and to the 
artisans of the towns he has spoken in vague 
language of their right to a larger amount of 
money without taking any trouble to point out 
the means by which their condition was to be 
bettered. He has assailed the landlords as men 
"who toil not, neither do they spin ; " but he has 
been very merciful towards capitalists, having 
himself acquired a fortune of nearly ten millions 
by manufacture. Apart from his well-known 
methods of gaining popular applause, he has a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 373 

fine platform style. His manner is hard, and his 
language is not particularly elevated, and has a 
crispness that is very like pertness. But his 
speeches are clear, and sometimes exciting and 
full of the suppressed passion. In the House of 
Commons, too, he is a ready and a powerful de- 
bater. The very defects of his mind and of his 
character often lend force to his utterances. He 
is narrow, and shallow, and bitter ; and then he is 
able to entertain his audience with those merci- 
less personal hits, those shallow appeals which 
are nearly always more successful with a popular 
assembly than statesmanlike observations. Then 
the fierceness of his temper gives you an idea of 
a man whom it is dangerous to cross, and this 
produces a strong impression upon an audience 
which respects power above everything else. His 
temper also gives force to his utterances, because 
his selfishness makes him feel his own view of a 
case so deeply as to enable him to give it that 
vehement utterance by which men are moved. It 
would be hard to say, even in this apparently 
dark hour of his fortunes, that he has not a great 
future before him ; but the greatness of his posi- 
tion will be the danger of his country. He is a 
combination of the worst qualities that were ever 
possessed by a Minister. He has a violent tem- 
per, a masterful will, a shallow judgment, a 
changeful purpose. Believing himself always 
right, and yet constantly changing his opinions, 



374 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

he forces men to adopt his particular views or 
openly quarrels with them. His appearance in- 
dicates to a large extent his character. He is a 
man of a very powerful frame, and is able to take 
liberties with it that show immense physical 
vigor. He eats and drinks generously, though 
not too much. He smokes all day long, and 
never takes any exercise. After a heavy dinner 
he is able to go down to the House of Commons 
and sit in the sweltering atmosphere for hours 
without any visible harm. He has a long, thin 
face, with a large nose slightly turned up. This 
gives a perky air to the countenance, and the 
perkiness is largely increased by that single eye- 
glass which has made the stony British stare an 
object of dislike to all mankind. 

Mr. Goschen plays an important part in the 
events that follow and deserves separate notice. 
He is German, and we believe Hebrew by de- 
scent. He certainly has an extremely Hebrew cast 
of countenance — Hebrew of the low and mean and 
not of the lofty and handsome type. The first 
impression of his face is certainly very sinister, 
and suggests a pettifogging provincial attorney 
rather than a statesman. His features are some- 
what vulpine. The eyes are small and appear 
smaller from the nearsightedness that keeps them 
nearly always half closed. The hair is gray, the 
side whiskers are gray, and the complexion is a 
curious gray also — not pallid, not yellow, and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 375 

not ruddy, but simply a dull white-lead gray. He 
usually sits in a crouching position with the side 
of his face turned to the House, the whole air 
of the man suggesting pettiness and meanness. 

The Marquis of Hartington is a typical Eng- 
lishman, more like the Briton of the drama and of 
the farce than almost any other living man. His 
whole air is one of phlegm. He sits for hours 
in the House without ever changing a look. He 
rarely smiles, he never laughs, and has not often 
during thirty years of Parliamentary life been 
betrayed into losing his temper. His mien is 
haughty and reserved. He is slovenly in dress, 
awkward in air, slouching in gait. He enters the 
House of Commons with the curious knock- 
kneed walk that distinguishes horsey Englishmen 
and with his hands sunk to the lowest depths of 
his pockets. His face is handsome and rather 
distinguished looking — though a friendly critic 
describes his profile as singularly like that of a 
horse. His under-lip is heavy and protuberant, 
and the face is rather too long. He wears a 
moustache and beard, and has a full head of hair, 
in which, though he is upwards of fifty, and 
though he is said to have lived in the full sense 
of the word, there is scarcely a gray thread visible. 
Lord Hartington was a very considerable 
period in Parliament before anybody thought 
there was much in him beyond what is called 
"horse-sense," self-control and a certain dignity. 



376 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

When in 1875 Mr. Gladstone retired from the 
leadership of the Liberal party there was a wail 
of despair among his followers when the suc- 
cession was handed over to Lord Hartington, 
and everybody was of opinion that the only 
thincr to be said in his favor was that he was the 
son of a duke. For some time after his accession 
to his new position, Lord Hartington realized the 
worst anticipations, and the contrast between his 
lumbering and ungainly style and the bright and 
epigrammatic agility of Mr. Disraeli opposite was 
painful and humiliating to the Liberal party. His 
delivery is certainly most trying. He speaks in 
a curious falsetto voice, and beginning his sen- 
tences at a top note he gradually descends to a 
deep basso, until in the end it is nothing but in- 
audible gutturals. This rise and fall goes on 
with a damnable iteration that makes life a wear- 
iness. There is a story told that somebody came 
up to Lord Hartington once and asked him 
whether it was true that he had yawned in the 
middle of his own speech. "Well, I suppose I did," 
answered Lord Hartington. "Wasn't it damned 
dull?" As time went on, however, he im- 
proved immensely, and when the days of his 
leadership were over he certainly had made a 
fine record. When people manage to get over 
the trying part of his delivery, it is discovered 
that he expresses himself very clearly and some- 
times with great force. For a good, hard-hitting 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 377 

speech he is the equal of almost any man in 
the House of Commons. According to some 
critics he is a lazy man, who does not care about 
anything, and regards politics, like most things 
in life, as a hideous and disgusting bore. Ac- 
cording to others, this apparent indifference is but 
a mask for a really keen and eager interest, for a 
strong feeling upon most debatable questions, 
and for an ambition slowly burning but still per- 
sistent. On the Irish question, unfortunately, 
he was not without personal prepossessions. 
He is said to have been very strongly attached 
to his brother, Lord Frederick Cavendish, the in- 
nocent and hapless victim of the Phoenix Park 
assassination. Beside this, he is deeply interested 
in Ireland owing to the possession of property 
there. The manner in which this property came 
into the hands of his family is one of the many 
disgraceful chapters in the history of Ireland. 

Sir George Otto Trevelyan is a man generally 
popular among Liberals for courtesy and agree- 
ableness of manner, and grace, elegance and ami- 
ability of speech. By Irishmen he is not so well 
liked, as he is supposed to hide a good deal of 
personal venom underneath his agreeable ex- 
terior. He is the nephew of Lord Macaulay, and 
the heir of a eood deal of his talents. He has 
the gifts and the deficiencies of a literary man. 
His speeches are clear and agreeable, but at the 
same time smell too much of the lamp. He 



378 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

writes beautifully, and some of his works are 
among the gems of English literature. He is 
not a man of much force. His nerves broke 
down under the strain of the Chief Secretaryship 
of Ireland ; his face grew haggard and his beard 
whitened in a few months. This sad experience 
seems to have soured his nature, and he has ever 
since been among the most vindictive enemies 
of Irish rights. 

The Marquis of Salisbury is undoubtedly en- 
titled by commanding talents to the position of 
Prime Minister. He is, next to Mr. Gladstone, 
the most interesting figure in the political life of 
England. In intellectual endowments, in culture, 
in loftiness of speech and of aim, he stands far be- 
yond most if not all other competitors for public 
favor. And yet it may be doubted if in any but a 
country governed by speakers he would be se- 
lected for the position of First Minister. He has 
the besetting vice of parliamentarians : he is the 
slave, not the master, of words ; and words do not 
always carry to his mind definite images of facts, 
and forces, and things. In this respect the Mar- 
quis of Salisbury is more like Mr. Gladstone than 
any of Mr. Gladstone's own associates. But the 
Marquis of Salisbury has a craze for antithesis, 
and a genius for epigram ; while the man has yet 
to be born who remembers one epigram out of 
Mr. Gladstone's oratory. In dealing with foreign 
nations Mr. Gladstone may say and has said some 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 379 

terribly imprudent and injurious things about 
powers who have had the choice afterwards of 
doing England and Mr. Gladstone a good turn or 
an ill turn; but Mr. Gladstone's amplitude of 
language and excess of qualifications have pre- 
vented his denunciations from being readily and 
portably remembered. The Marquis of Salis- 
bury, on the other hand, has the unhappy knack 
of putting his attacks into a compact form that 
makes them more difficult to forget than to re- 
member. The difference in the effect of the im- 
prudent utterances of the two men is the difference 
between getting a sousing from a tub and being 
stabbed by a poisoned stiletto. 

When the career of the Marquis of Salisbury 
comes to be considered, it will be found that many 
of his mistakes as a politician are due to his train- 
ing as a journalist. The training of the journalist 
is in many respects the best ; in some, it is the 
worst for the man who takes afterwards an active 
part in politics. The writer at his desk is essen- 
tially removed from contact with his fellow-men ; 
and thus it is that the timid man becomes brave 
with his pen, the gentle sanguinary, the wavering 
decided. The journalist, accustomed to write in 
the privacy of his own closet, gets a habit of 
thought independent of the feelings of other 
people ; and it is the power of considering, and 
regarding, and working through the feelings, and 
sensibilities, and passions of other men that make 



380 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

up a great part of the equipment of the practical 
politician. 

It is still more unfortunate for the Marquis of 
Salisbury that the journal on which he received 
his early training- should have been the Saturday 
Review. A man could not be one of the leading 
writers for such a journal for many years without 
taking away some distinct traces of its style. 

Another ©rave obstacle to the success of the 
Marquis as a leader of the new and omnipotent 
democracy is that, in all probability, he has not 
yet attorned in his heart to the democracy. He 
belonged for years to the clique of brilliant men 
who made war on the multitude; the hauteur of 
the scholar and of the writer rather than of the 
aristocrat was at the bottom of his political faith. 
His hostility to the Household Suffrage is well 
remembered. In the course of debates he made 
comparisons between the term of residence re- 
quired for artisans and the term of imprisonment 
compulsorily gone through by a person convicted 
of crime. His refusal for years to be reconciled 
to Mr. Disraeli was due, it may well be supposed, 
not to personal dislike alone, but because the 
Conservative leader had lowered the political life 
of England by admitting the greater part of its 
citizens to a share in their own o-overnment. 

Lord Randolph Churchill has made advances 
more rapidly than almost any politician of his 
time. There was probably not one member of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 381 

the Parliament of Lord Beaconsfield who had the 
least conception that the member for Woodstock 
would ever have amounted to anything like an 
important figure in the House of Commons. In 
that Parliament of nearly six years he spoke three 
or four times, and the speeches were not promis- 
ing- f a future. On one occasion he made a 
speech in defence of a hopelessly rotten corpora- 
tion ; on another he attacked Mr. Sclater-Booth 
with a freedom that shocked sober men ; and his 
third notable performance at this period was a 
speech made in Dublin, which, in the echoes that 
reached London, seemed to extenuate the ob- 
struction of Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biofgar at t h e 
moment when their heads were demanded by the 
universal voice of England. His political appear- 
ances, in short, were regarded as part of an eccen- 
tric and reckless nature, that found everything 
else in life more interesting than its serious affairs. 
At this period this was perhaps a not wholly un- 
just estimate. His ignorance certainly at the 
time was appalling. 

The fall of the Beaconsfield Ministry was his 
rise. Those who can look back at the aspect of 
the two parties can alone form a fair estimate of 
the work Lord Randolph Churchill and his asso- 
ciates have done for the Conservative party. No- 
body — who, new to Parliamentary life, had his 
powers of observation fresh and keen — can forget 
the mournful contrast between the appearance 



382 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and the demeanor of the victors and the van- 
quished after the great electoral struggle of 1880. 
The Liberals overflowed on their benches; all the 
names that had been familiar for years as the 
leaders of the forlorn hopes of Radicalism had 
found places in the new Parliament. The great 
leader of the party stood one day at the bar, his 
mobile face wreathed in smiles, and with the flush 
of achieved victory, and greater victories to come; 
and the whole party rioted in the sense of its 
omnipotence. On the other side there were 
benches painfully attenuated, and the universal 
look was one of despair. The leaders of the party 
were in worse case than the rank and file. The 
overwhelming defeat at the polls had come upon 
them with surprise ; to bewilderment succeeded 
disgust; and it was impossible to get them to 
turn their faces from the wall and take up their 
broken weapons. One man suddenly took a 
fancy to rural pursuits ; the exigencies of his 
private affairs engrossed the mind of another ; 
they nearly all kept studiously away from the new 
Parliament, and shunned the gaze of their triumph- 
ant enemies. It was in this dark hour that Lord 
Randolph Churchill and his associates in the 
Fourth party took up the work of arresting the 
triumphant chariot of their adversaries. It looked 
hopeless. The disposition of even their own 
side was, for a while at least, to let things take 
their course ; and as the country had determined 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 383 

that it was best for it to enter on the path that 
leads to Hades, to let the country have its way. 

The entrance of Mr. Bradlaugh to Parliament 
would, in all probability, have been allowed to 
pass unchallenged had it not been for the vigilance 
of Lord Randolph ; through his efforts it was that 
the member for Northampton was refused ad- 
mission ; that the subject was gradually trans- 
formed from the contest between the convictions 
of a single member to a great ministerial ques- 
tion. Then the bills of the Ministry were op- 
posed clause by clause, even line by line ; and it 
soon came to be seen, that by the dexterous use 
of the forms of the House— by constant attend- 
ance, by steady, hard work, three or four men 
could act as a drag on a party with a hundred 
majority. I am not expressing approval of the 
tactics of the Fourth party. In carrying on this 
work Lord Randolph ran great risks. He was 
exposed to the charge of obstruction ; was howled 
at by the ministerial rank and file; denounced by 
ministerial orators ; laughed at and menaced, and 
even included in the same category with the fol- 
lowers of Mr. Parnell. But he took no notice of 
these attacks, went on his way steadily ; with the 
result that there came to be confidence where 
there had been despair ; activity where there had 
been apathy; brisk and constant attendance on 
benches that had yawned in horrid emptiness. 
Nobody took him seriously at this period, not 
even his own side. 



384 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

It may be doubted if he had at this time even 
in the ranks of the Liberal party enemies more 
scornful than in his own party. The whole forces 
of the front opposition bench were arrayed against 
him. The squires thought him grossly insub- 
ordinate, and it looked as if he were going to 
be cast out of the ranks. He has changed 
all this. His rise in popular favor and in par- 
liamentary influence has been seen growing before 
the universal eye, until now he is perhaps the 
most popular man of his party out of doors, and 
in its parliamentary arrangements he can dictate 
his own terms. 

Justin McCarthy was born in Cork in 1830. 
When he was a boy the capital of Munster could 
really lay claim to deserve the traditional reputa- 
tion of the province for learning. Mr. McCarthy's 
father was one of the best classical scholars of the 
day. There was at that time a schoolmaster 
named Goulding — the name is familiar to many a 
Corkman still — who was a really fine scholar. 
Justin McCarthy was one of Goulding's pupils, and 
when he left school he had the power not com- 
mon even amono- hard students of beinor- aD l e to 
read Greek fluently and to write as well as trans- 
late Latin with complete ease. Journalism ap- 
peared to him the readiest form of making a live- 
lihood, and, like so many other literary men, he 
becran at one of the low runo-s of the ladder. He 
had taught himself shorthand, and his first em- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. $g5 

ployment was that of a reporter on the Cork Ex- 
amine!'. It may be an interesting fact to note that 
his hand still retains its cunning, and that he may 
often be observed taking- down on the margin of 
the Parliamentary Order Paper the exact words 
of some important Ministerial statement for quota- 
tion in his leading article. The first important 
piece of work, it may also here be mentioned, 
which Mr. McCarthy was sent to do was to report 
the trials of Smith O'Brien and his colleagues at 
Clonmel. There are two other important remin- 
iscences of Mr. McCarthy's reporting days. He 
was present at the meeting in Cork at which the 
late Judge Keogh swore that oath which played 
so tragic a part in Irish history ; and he was also 
present, we are informed, at the famous dinner at 
which the present Lord Fitzgerald, then a rising 
young lawyer, in the ardor of his patriotism r 
bearded a lord-lieutenant and scandalized an 
audience of Cork's choicest Whigs. It was in 
1847 tnat Mr. McCarthy started his professional 
life. All that was young, enthusiastic, and earnest 
in Cork shared the political aspirations of that 
stormy time. There had been in existence for 
many years a debating society known as the 
"Scientific and Literary Society," and one of the 
many forms in which the new spirit roused by 
Young Ireland showed itself was the starting of 
the Cork Historical Society, as a rival to the older 
and tamer association. Among the members of 



386 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

this body were many young men who afterwards 
rose to importance. Sir John Pope Hennessy, 
now Governor of the Mauritius, and Justin Mc- 
Carthy himself were among its first recruits. The 
Historical Society became a recruiting ground for 
Young Ireland ; nearly all its members joined the 
party of combat, and they founded one of the 
many clubs that were started to prepare for the 
coming struggle. 

Justin McCarthy, in his maturity of philosophic 
calm, can look back to a time when he dreamed 
of rifles and bayonet charges and death in the 
midst of fierce fight for the cause of Ireland. To 
those who know him there is no difference in the 
man of to-day and the man of '48. He has still 
the same unflinching courage as then. In this 
respect, indeed, McCarthy is a singular mixture 
of apparent incompatibilities. There is no man 
who enjoys the hour more keenly. He has the 
capacity of M. Renan for finding the life around 
him amusing ; enjoys society and solitude, work 
and play, a choice dinner or an all-night sitting. 
He has eminently "a two o'clock in the morning 
courage" — a readiness to face the worst without 
notice. With his fifty-five years he is still a man 
of sanguine temperament; but in '48 he was only 
eighteen. He naturally, therefore, belonged to 
the section which had Mitchel for its apostle, and 
open and immediate insurrection for its gospel. 
Mitchel was arrested, and the cause failed. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 387 

With this revolutionary episode ended for the 
time McCarthy's political history, and from this 
period, for many years, his story is that of the 
literary man. It was in the year 1851 that Mr. 
McCarthy first tried his fortunes in London. The 
attempt ended in failure, and he had to return to 
the reporter's place in Cork. There was at that 
time a Royal Commission for inquiring into the 
fairs and markets of Ireland, and the secretary 
having broken down, Justin McCarthy was taken 
on as the official shorthand writer. His aptitude 
was such that some member of the Commission 
urged him to again go to London, and armed 
him with letters of introduction. This was in 
1852. McCarthy again tried his chance, but 
without success. Before he could continue this 
fruitless labor he heard of the Northern Times, 
the first provincial daily of England, which was 
about to be started in Liverpool, applied for a 
situation, and was accepted. 

He was still only a reporter, and even he him- 
self did not yet very well know whether he was 
fitted for better things. The presumption always 
is that the journalist who begins as a reporter 
should be allowed so to continue. But with 
persistent energy McCarthy worked on, gave 
literary lectures, and in the end was allowed the 
privilege of contributing to the editorial columns. 
He remained in Liverpool till i860. McCarthy 
was contended for by several Liverpool journals, 



388 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

but he declined all offers, fixed in the resolve to 
make or mar his fortune in London. 

The young journalist had at this time a coun- 
sellor who for many years was the chief arbiter 
of his destiny in all the crises of his life. Miss 
Charlotte Allman, a member of the well-known 
Munster family, had come to reside with her 
brother in Liverpool. The two young people 
resolved to marry, in spite of the strong opposi- 
tion of relatives and in the face of frownino- for- 
tunes, and in 1855 they were married. The 
folly of these young people was more truly wise 
than the sagacity of their elders, for their 
marriage was to both the best and the most 
beneficent event in their lives. To those who 
knew Mrs. McCarthy there is no need to dilate 
on the resistless charm of her truly beautiful 
nature. She never wrote a line ; she did not 
even pretend to any literary power ; but she had 
the keen intelligence of sympathy ; she had faith 
in her husband, and she had indomitable courage. 
It was she that induced Mr. McCarthy to refuse 
all the Liverpool offers, and that turned his face 
steadily to the larger hopes of London ; and the 
joint capital of the young couple when they 
landed in London was ^10. 

McCarthy's first London engagement was as a 
Parliamentary reporter on the Morning Star. 
He found time to do other work in the intervals 
of this hard occupation, and tried his hand at an 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 389 

essay for one of the magazines. He had taught 
himself French, German, and Italian ; was famil- 
iar with the three literatures ; and his first attempt 
at essay-writing had Schiller for its subject. He 
next tried the Westminster Review, and two 
articles of his in that periodical attracted the 
attention of John Stuart Mill. The philosopher 
was introduced to the young writer, showed a 
friendly interest in his welfare, and helped to 
advance his fortunes. In the autumn of i860 he 
was appointed foreign editor of the Morning Star, 
and in 1865 he became editor-in-chief. Those 
who remember the journal and the times when it 
lived will know what splendid service it did to the 
cause of Ireland, and its tone of energetic advo- 
cacy of Irish national claims was largely due 
to the inspiration of the ardent man who was 
then at its head. It was while he was in this 
position that Mr. McCarthy became intimately 
acquainted with Mr. John Bright. In these days 
the ex-minister was fond of spending some hours 
in the office of the Star, in which his sister had 
some shares ; and many an hour did the editor 
and the politician spend together. It is one of 
the unpleasant consequences of the fierce strug- 
gles of the last few years that those two old 
friends have ceased even to speak to one another. 
But in 1868, when Mr. Bright sold out his share in 
the Morning Star, Mr. McCarthy resigned his 
position on the staff of that journal. 



390 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

He then entered on a new and highly inter- 
esting experience. He went to America, where 
an embarrassing choice of offers awaited him. 
He had, while still editor of the Star, published 
his first novel, "Paul Massey," in 1866 — a story 
which Mr. McCarthy has since suppressed. This 
had been followed, in 1867, by the "Waterdale 
Neighbors " — a charming story. One of Mr. 
McCarthy's first engagements was to write a 
series of stories for the " Galaxy," a literary maga- 
zine in America. America has changed greatly 
since the Irish lecturer went on his first tour, for 
at that period the Pacific Railway had but just 
been completed, and the Indians used still to 
haunt the railway stations in numbers sufficiently 
large to be sometimes dangerous. Mr. McCarthy 
was an extremely successful lecturer, and by 
means of his pen and his tongue found the United 
States a profitable field of labor. He paid a brief 
visit to London in the middle of 1870, returned 
again in the autumn of that year, and finally in 
the autumn of 1871 came back to England. 

Meantime his name had been kept steadily 
before the English reading public. Immediately 
after his return Mr. McCarthy accepted an 
engagement on the Daily News as Parliamentary 
leader wril-er. For years he was looked up to by 
most of his editorial colleagues as the man who 
took the most rapid and the most accurate view 
of a Parliamentary situation. The work of a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 391 

Parliamentary leader writer is by no means easy. 
He has to keep abominable hours ; he has to 
watch for hours before he can put a pen to paper, 
and up to a recent period he had to get through 
his task under circumstances of savage inconven- 
ience. But Mr. McCarthy has a singularly robust 
physique, and every night between four and five 
his spectacled and tranquilly philosophic face 
might be seen in Palace Yard with a regularity 
that premiers never attained. His literary for- 
tunes, meantime, steadily advanced ; and in " Dear 
Lady Disdain" he wrote a novel which every- 
body talked about, and upon which there was a 
real run. He soon after devoted himself to a 
very different kind of work, under the title, "The 
History of Our Own Times," the first two 
volumes of which were published in 1878. The 
book took the town by storm. It was, indeed, a 
model of what contemporary history should be. 
Equal justice was dealt out to all parties ; the 
portraits of men were clear-cut and sympathetic, 
and the style was evenly melodious without one 
single attempt at rhetoric. The book sold with 
enormous rapidity, and edition followed edition 
in rapid succession. Great as was its success 
on this side of the water, it was still greater in 
America. But the author gained little from this 
enormous American sale, for as yet there is no 
copyright between England and America. His 
old publishers, the Messrs. Harper Brothers, with 



392 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

that fair dealing which characterizes all their trans- 
actions, did send him voluntarily an occasional 
instalment, but they told him that if there had 
been an international copyright they could have 
well afforded to have given him ,£10,000 for his 
rights. Mr. McCarthy is one of the men who 
does not owe Mr. Parnell anything — as the Irish 
leader would himself be the first to acknowledge 
— but he soon saw that in Mr. Parnell there was 
the real chief of that honest Parliamentary party 
for which he' had been vainly looking. To Mr. 
Parnell then he unreservedly gave his support. 
He was thrown into a prominent position at an 
epoch of fierce and tempestuous passions ; but 
nobody was readier to see, when the time came, 
the necessity for strong action. Occasionally he 
differed, from the counsels of younger and less- 
trained men, and there are few of these colleagues 
of his who can look back upon those occasions 
when they ventured to differ from their wise 
counsellor without misgivings. But, whatever 
might be his views, Mr. McCarthy always stood 
by the rule, that in the face of the enemy 
the Irish party should be a unit. He has 
been ready on every emergency to take his 
share of the unspeakable drudgery to which Irish 
members have been subjected, and it imposed a 
greater sacrifice on him than on any other mem- 
bre of the party to face the odium which a part 
in these unpopular labors involved. If the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 393 

delivery of Mr. McCarthy were equal to his in- 
tellectual powers, he would be amongst the fore- 
most speakers of the House. He is ready ; he 
has clearness of head and calmness of temper ; 
and his ideas clothe themselves in language of 
appropriateness with an unerring regularity. He 
has in more than one debate delivered the best 
speech in point of matter and of form. Mr. 
McCarthy is far superior to any of his party, and 
probably to any man in the House, as an after- 
dinner speaker. He bubbles over with wit of the 
most delicate and playful kind. 

Just as his long struggle was crowned with suc- 
cess, and as he became from the obscure reporter 
the popular novelist, the successful historian, and 
the member of Parliament, the woman without 
whom he would have remained, in all probability, 
poor and obscure to the end, was seized with a 
lingering illness and died. It would be unbe- 
coming to even attempt a description of what 
this loss meant to Mr. McCarthy. He has one 
daughter and one son. They share the political 
opinions of their father, and of their mother, who 
was a strong Nationalist. 

It is acquaintance only with Justin McCarthy 
that can make intelligible the strong hold he has 
over the affections of his intimates. It is not 
often that there are found united in the same man 
modesty and literary genius, a toleration of others 
with a power of absolute self-abnegation, a sane 



394 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

enjoyment of every hour, with the courage of 
calmly facing, for the sake of the right, For- 
tune's worst blow. Moderate in advice when the 
fortunes of his country are at stake, he is always 
boldest when acts involve only personal risk to 
himself. It is this mixture of tenderness, shyness, 
and romanticism with a thoroughly fearless spirit, 
that make him so beloved. 

His son, Justin Huntley McCarthy, has won a 
high reputation for his years, both as a historian 
and as a member of Parliament, although his 
efficiency as a worker has been impaired by feeble 
health. 

Thomas Sexton was born in Waterford in 1848. 
He had not yet reached his thirteenth birthday 
when he entered a competition for a clerkship in 
the secretary's office of the Waterford and Lim- 
erick Company. The post was unimportant ; the 
salary small ; but that did not prevent thirty 
youths entering the lists. Of these Sexton was 
the youngest, and obtained the place. 

Meantime Sexton's ideas had been straying 
towards work more suitable to his tastes than 
that of the railway office. And when he was 
twenty-one he at last determined to make a bid 
for better fortunes. It speaks well, not merely 
for Sexton, that even at that early period in his 
career the departure from his native city should 
have been regarded as an event of some impor- 
tance. A public dinner was held in honor of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 395 

departing young citizen. Sexton had become the 
centre of a group of able young men, of whom 
two, at least, have since achieved a position of 
importance — Edmund Leamy, and Richard Dow- 
ling, the well-known novelist. Sexton went to 
Dublin with all good wishes, and with the 
strongest encouragement from friends who had 
faith in his future. His start in the Irish capital 
was good, for he immediately obtained a per- 
manent' post as a leader-writer in the Nation of- 
fice, from A. M. Sullivan, at that time the editor. 
He contributed regularly his leading articles 
every week to the National Journal, and when 
Mr. D. B. Sullivan went to the Irish Bar he took 
up the editorship of the Weekly News. He was, 
for a while, also the editor of Young Ireland. ' 

Busy with his pen, Sexton took practically no 
part in politics, and had done little to justify those 
promises of oratorical eminence which had been 
given in the debating societies. However, when 
the Home Rule League was formed, he had given 
public proof of the faith that was in him by 
joining its ranks. In 1879 he was requested by 
the council of the Land League to attend a county 
meeting at Dromore West, County Sligo. The 
people of the county were quick to discern the abil- 
ities of the unknown young man, and he made, 
from his very first appearance among them, a 
profound impression. Indeed, even after he was 
elected, Sexton was known by Sligo long before 



396 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

he was recognized by Ireland generally. Nobody 
could help remarking that his voice was pecu- 
liarly melodious ; but few had any conception of 
the great things that were in this thin, delicate, 
rather retiring man. 

He was simply a writer — a clever fellow 
enough in his way — able to write a pretty article 
or a nice little story, but, beyond that, nothing. It 
might be desirable, perhaps, that he should be 
run because good candidates were so hard to get ; 
and because his long training in the Nation of- 
fice was some security that he had the right 
opinions. Sexton has, however, established a po- 
sition in the councils of his party and in the 
esteem of the whole Irish race. One of the first 
to discern the commanding abilities of Sexton 
was Mr. Healy, who urgently and constantly 
pressed the claims of his friend. When at last 
Sexton was sent to Sligo his difficulties were not 
at an end. These petty obstacles, however, did 
not come from the masses of the people, many 
of whom had already begun to appreciate the 
real worth of the man with whom they had to 
deal ; and the unknown young writer was elected 
at the head of the poll, above both the Whig and 
the Tory magnates who had previously sat for 
the county. 

Sexton was at last in the arena where his 
abilities had the opportunity of asserting them- 
selves. But even in this position, recognition 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 397 

came to him slowly. During his first session of 
Parliament he remained comparatively unnoticed. 
He was phenomenally constant in attendance ; at 
almost any hour of the day or night he was to be 
found in that seat which he had marked for his 
own, and he was in the habit of putting what was 
considered a very large number of questions. 
But nobody yet had any idea that there was any- 
thing in him above very earnest and very re- 
spectable mediocrity, nor during the recess which 
followed did he advance his position to any ap- 
preciable degree. It was on an evening when 
Mr. Forster's Coercion Bill was under discussion 
that Sexton broke upon the House for the first 
time as a great orator. Mr. Forster did not pro- 
duce the blue book, in which there were the sta- 
tistics of increased crime, until weeks after he had 
committed the Government to coercion, and days 
after he had introduced his bill into the House. It 
was in the dissection of the extraordinary details 
at last produced that Sexton showed his powers. 
The House was, when he rose, but ill-prepared, 
indeed, for such a speech, especially from an 
Irish member; for of the subject it was already 
sick. The circumstances of the moment tended 
to increase the prevalent depression, for it was a 
dull, dark, dismal evening. The House was, 
therefore, listless, sombre and but thinly filled 
when Sexton rose. He spoke for two hours, 
amid chilling silence, interrupted but occasionally 



398 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

by the thin cheers of the small group^of Irishmen 
around him ; and yet when he sat down the 
whole House instinctively felt that a great orator 
had appeared among them. 

Sexton is a keen observer, and his reading of 
men's motives is helped by a slight dash of cyni- 
cism. In ordinary affairs blase and physically 
lethargic, his political industry is marvellous. He 
enters the House of Commons when the Speaker 
takes the chair, and never leaves it until the door- 
keeper's cry is heard. He sits in his place dur- 
ing - all those lone: hours, grudg-inc* the time he 
spends at a hasty dinner, or the few minutes he 
gives to the smoking of the dearly-loved cigar. 
He rarely approaches the discussion of any ques- 
tion without full knowledge of all the facts, 
carefully arranged and abundantly illustrated 
by letters or other documents. He has great 
mastery of detail. With every measure that in 
the least degree concerns Ireland he is acquainted 
down to the last clause, and thus it is that he 
enters on all debates with a singularly complete 
equipment. Finally, his mind is extraordinarily 
alert. His opponent has scarcely sat down when 
he is on his feet with counter-arguments to meet 
even the plausible case that has been made against 
him. This gift, aided by sang-froid, makes him a 
most formidable opponent, and even the Speaker 
has had more than once to succumb before the 
ready answer and the cool temper of Sexton. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 399 

Arthur O'Connor was born in London on 
October i, 1844. His father was a Kerry man, 
for many years one of the most eminent physi- 
cians of London. Arthur was educated at 
Ushaw ; and in the year 1863 began a clerkship 
in the War Office. There was but one vacancy, 
and there were thirty competitors ; O'Connor got 
the place, obtaining a higher average of marks 
than any Civil Service competitor for many years. 
For the space of sixteen years the young Irish- 
man led the monotonous life of the Civil Servant. 
He was a model clerk in being always accurate, 
attentive, hardworking. But outside his office 
Arthur O'Connor was the most unclerklike of 
men. He had political opinions of the most 
unpopular, unprofitable character. Then he not 
only professed Irish National principles, but he 
was elected a member of the executive of the 
Home R.ule Confederation. Finally, he began to 
be seen in the lobby in the House of Commons 
in earnest and frequent colloquy with Mr. Parnell. 
O'Connor was by no means anxious to remain in 
his dingy rooms in Pall Mall. Under a scheme 
of reorganization, an offer was made to him, as to 
other clerks, to retire if he chose. He did so 
choose, and shook the dust of the War Office 
from off his feet. 

In 1879 he was elected member of the Chelsea 
Board of Guardians, and the main purpose which 
he had in getting this place was that he might 



400 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

look after Catholic interests. For six months 
not one of the Catholic inmates of the workhouse 
had been allowed to go out to mass, either on a 
Sunday or on a holiday ; nor was a Catholic 
priest permitted to enter the place ; no Catholic 
prayer-books were given to be read, and the 
Catholic children were sent to Protestant schools; 
and, finally, the institution was not stained by 
having a single " Romanist " among its officials. 
On the very first day on which O'Connor took 
his seat, the most eligible of all the applicants for 
the humble position of "scrubber" was rejected 
on the sole ground that he was a Catholic. The 
board consisted of twenty members. O'Connor 
was the single Catholic in the whole number. 
O'Connor was not aggressive in manner, nor 
violent in language ; he made no speeches either 
strong or long, nor did he intrigue, or smile, or 
coax. He first mastered the whole complicated 
system of the poor-law code. After a while 
O'Connor had become such an expert in the law 
of the workhouse that his fellow-guardians found 
he could take care of himself, and some of them 
began to seek his aid as an ally whenever there 
was any proposal which required strong backing. 
But he had been elected a member of the Gen- 
eral Purposes Committee — the most important 
of all the committees. It had the contracts to 
give and to examine, dealt with accounts and 
other matters in the economy of the workhouse. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 401 

O'Connor devoted days and weeks to the study 
of all these accounts, with the result that he knew 
every item intimately. It became impossible for 
a penny to pass muster for which full and satis- 
factory explanation was not given — jobbery 
trembled beneath the pitiless eyes of this cold and 
calm inquisitor, and rogues fled abashed. All 
this could not be accomplished without terribly 
hard work, and every Wednesday O'Connor was 
in his place on the Committee or at the Board ; 
and though this work often extended continuously 
from ten o'clock in the morning till eight at night 
with the exception of half-an-hour for lunch, in 
his place he remained all the time. For even a 
minute's absence might enable the jobber to rush 
through his scheme ; and not a farthing would 
O'Connor allow to pass, if criticism were de- 
manded. 

O'Connor's part in Parliament has been such 
as one might have anticipated from his previous 
career. He devoted himself to the work which 
was dryest and most uninviting ; had acquired in 
a short time a knowledge so intimate of the rules 
of the House as to be a terror to the Speaker. 
All was done with an air of unbroken severity, 
but of unruffled temper and of inflexible courtesy, 
O'Connor was the calm, patient, lofty spirit of 
economy that chided, but pitied, and that spoke 
in the accents of sorrow rather than of anger. 
But he would go on criticising, however painful 



1.02 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the duty. One item disposed of, another was 
taken up ; that disposed of, there was yet another 
item; and so on through the countless figures of 
the huge volumes that contain the Estimates. 
But it was not always criticism or always com- 
plaint. At. some moments it was an explanation 
which O'Connor prayed for with his inimitable 
air of sad deference. A small speech was re- 
quired, of course, to preface the inquiry. The 
Minister having answered, a second speech was 
necessary in order to have a further word on just 
a trifling little difficulty that still remained. And 
thus it went on hour after hour — O'Connor calm, 
deferential, inquisitive, miraculously omniscient — 
the Minister restless, apologetic, with the result 
that, when the night was over, the Treasury had 
got about one out of every fifteen votes it had 
hoped to carry. Work of this kind, which is con- 
stantly done by such men as O'Connor and 
Biggar — and in former days by gallant Lysaght 
Finigan — is not and can never be reported, is 
rarely even heard of; but it is in patiently, con- 
tinuously going through the hideous drudgery of 
unrecognized toil like this that such men show 
their self-devotion. With the doubtful exception 
of Mr. Parnell, Arthur O'Connor has the best 
House of Commons style of any man in the 
party. Clear, deliberate, passionless in language, 
gesture, delivery, he is the very best model of an 
official speaker. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 405 

Not one man in a hundred would ever guess 
when he heard him addressing the House of 
Commons that O'Connor had a drop of Irish 
blood in his veins. The whole air is rigid, 
serious, icy. He drops his words with calculated 
slowness, and the subjects he selects for treat- 
ment are dry and formal and statistical — the sub- 
jects, in short, which are supposed to attract the 
plodding mind of the typical Englishman. The 
physique of O'Connor suggests the idea of a 
calmness and unemotional self-control which an 
Irishman is rarely supposed ta possess; he is tall, 
thin, with a sombre air, and a cold, dark-blue eye. 
But all these outward presentments^ are but a 
mask ; in the whole Irish party there is not one 
whose heart beats with emotion so profound, with 
a hatred so fierce. Analysis has divided enthu- 
siasm into two kinds — the enthusiasm that is 
warm and the enthusiasm that is cold. The en- 
thusiasm of Arthur O'Connor is of the cold, that 
is of the perilous, type. 

Sufficient has been here written of Arthur 
O'Connor to make intelligible the high respect, 
and even affection, in which he is held by his 
friends and colleagues. The sternness of- his 
faith does not prevent him from being one of the 
kindliest of companions, one of the most tolerant 
and even-tempered of councillors. 

Timothy Daniel Sullivan — the future ballad- 
writer of the Irish National cause — was born at 

24 



406 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Bantry in 1827. The father of the Sullivans was 
in but moderate circumstances, but education and 
refinement descend socially deeper in Ireland 
than in England ; and the parent of T. D. Sulli- 
van was a man of considerable culture. The 
mother was likewise a woman of large gifts, and 
was for many years a teacher. She seems to 
have had, besides, a very attractive personality. 
The home of the Sullivans was thoroughly 
National, and amid the stirring times of 1848, 
and the hideous disasters of the two preceding 
years, there were all the circumstances to make 
the faith of the family robust. The father was 
carried away, like the majority of the earnest 
Irishmen of that time, by the gospel which the 
Young Ireland leaders were preaching, and, as a 
reward, was dismissed from his employment. 

T. D. Sullivan, like his brothers, though 
brought up in a small and remote town, had a 
good education. The chief and the best school- 
master of the town was Mr. Healy, the grand- 
father of the present distinguished patriot of 
that name. Under his charge T. D. Sullivan 
was placed, and it was probably from Mr. Healy 
that Mr. Sullivan learned the most of what he 
knows. The ties between the two families were 
afterwards drawn still closer, when T. D. Sul- 
livan married Miss Kate Healy, the daughter of 
his teacher. His younger brother, A. M. Sul- 
livan, after trying his hand as an artist, ulti- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 407 

mately became connected with the Dublin 
Nation. T. D. Sullivan meantime had also 
allowed his mind to run into dreams of a literary- 
future. In fact he had filled a whole volume 
with his compositions ; but, with the secrecy 
which youth loves, he had not confided his 
transgression to any one. But two or three of 
the pieces had even appeared in print, and it was 
not till he came to Dublin and began to write in 
the Nation that the poetical genius of T. D. 
Sullivan sought recognition. Into the columns of 
that journal he began at once to pour the verses 
which he had hitherto so religiously kept 
secret, and from the first his songs attracted 
attention. Many of his poems became popular 
immediately on their appearance, and spread 
over that vast world of the Irish race which now 
extends through so many of the nations of the 
earth. A well-known story with regard to the 
" Sona from the Backwoods " will illustrate the 
influence of T. D. Sullivan's muse. Most Irish- 
men know that splendid little poem, with its bold 
opening, and its splendid refrain : 

Deep in Canadian woods we've met, 

From one bright island flown ; 
Great is the land we tread, but yet 

Our hearts are with our own. 
And ere we leave this'shanty small, 
While fades the autumn day, 

We'll toast old Ireland ! 
Dear old Ireland ! 
Ireland, boys, hurrah ! 



408 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

This song, published in the Nation in 1857, 
was carried to America by Captain D. J. Down- 
ing. It rapidly became popular, both among the 
Fenians and among the Irish soldiers in the 
American army. Every man of the Irish Brigade 
knew it, and it was often sung at the bivouac fire 
after a hard day's fighting. On the night of 
the bloody battle of Fredericksburg the Federal 
army lay watchful on their arms, with spirits 
damped by the loss of so many gallant comrades. 
To cheer his brother officers Captain Downing 
sang his favorite song. The chorus of the first 
stanza was taken up by his dashing regiment, 
next by the brigade, then by the entire line of 
the army for miles along the river ; and, when the 
captain ceased, the same chant came like an echo 
from the Confederate lines. 

The song " God save Ireland " became popular 
with even greater rapidity. It was issued at an 
hour when all Ireland was stirred to intense 
depths of anger and of sorrow, and this profound 
and immense feelino- longed for a voice. When 
" God save Ireland " was produced the people at 
once took it up, and so instantaneously that the 
author himself heard it chorused in a railway 
carriage on the very day after its publication. 

It has been his invariable rule in composing 
these songs to make them " ballads " in the true 
sense of the word — songs, that is to say, that 
expressed popular sentiment in the language of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 409 

everyday life, that had good catching rhymes, 
and that could be easily sung. An immense 
fillip was undoubtedly given to the demand for 
abatements of rent by the song, " Griffith's 
Valuation ; " and still more successful was the 
ballad of " Murty Hynes," which was one of the 
most felicitous compositions that ever came from 
his pen. 

T. D. Sullivan was elected, as is known, along 
with Mr. H. J. Gill, for County Westmeath, at the 
general election of 1880; and in spite of the ab- 
sorbing nature of his journalistic duties he has 
been one of the. most active and one of the most 
attentive members of the party. He has been 
still more prominent on the platform ; and it is at 
large Irish popular gatherings that his speech is 
most effective. He is Irish of the Irish and ex- 
presses the deep and simple gospel of the peo- 
ple in language that goes home ; and then his 
keen sense of humor enables him to supply that 
element of amusement which is always looked 
forward to with eagerness by the crowd. More 
advanced in years than many of his colleagues, 
he has, nevertheless, been as young as the 
youngest among them in his energy and in his 
hopefulness. Mr. Sullivan has shrunk from no 
work which the exigencies of the situation de- 
manded, and has been ready to take his share of 
the talking — whether the House considered his 
intervention seasonable or unseasonable ; whether 



410 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

he spoke to benches that were full or empty, 
silent or uproarious. Erring, perhaps, as a rule, 
on the side of over-earnestness, he often lights up 
his Parliamentary, like his conversational, efforts 
with bright flashes of wit. " Punctuality," he said 
once to a colleague who turned up at a meeting 
with characteristic lateness, " punctuality, in the 
opinion of the Irish party, is the thief of time." 
Some of his lighter poems are greater favorites 
with many people than his more serious efforts, 
because of this same vein of irrepressible humor. 

James O'Kelly was born in Dublin, in the 
year 1845. Among his companions were a num- 
ber of young men who, in the dark hours, worked 
and hoped for the elevation of the country ; and 
he learned in a school in London the scorn that 
belongs to the child of a conquered race. O'Kelly 
entered upon political work at an unusually pre- 
cocious age, and certainly had not reached his 
legal majority when political aims had become the 
lode-star of his dreams. 

These political projects were interrupted in 
1863. He had from boyhood longed for the life 
of a soldier. There was no army in Ireland, he 
would not serve under the British flag, and he 
entered the army of France. He had scarcely 
been enrolled in the Foreign Legion in Paris 
when he was called upon to enter active service. 
The Arabs in the province of Oran were in re- 
bellion, and here O'Kelly had an opportunity of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 41 J 

learning all the dangers of Algerine warfare. 
When Maximilian was made Emperor of Mexico 
French forces were sent by the Emperor Na- 
poleon to win for his nominee his new dominion, 
and O'Kelly's regiment was one of those which 
were detailed for this service. He took part in 
the siege of Oajaca, and after the fall of that 
town and the capture of General Porfirio Diaz — 
since President of Mexico — he advanced north- 
ward, and was present at the various battles 
which placed Northern Mexico in the power 
of the French troops. Then the tide turned in 
favor of the Mexicans ; and at Mier the troops 
of Maximilian were disastrously beaten. O'Kelly 
was made a prisoner in June, 1866. But an at- 
tempt to escape, unless successful, meant death. 
His guards proved careless, and in the darkness 
of the night he eluded their vigilance. For days 
he had to wander about in hourly peril. At one 
time he took to the river, hoping to cross to the 
territories of the United States. The induce- 
ment to attempt this mode of escape was his dis- 
covery of a rude boat made from a hollowed-out 
tree ; and in this primitive craft he floated with 
the stream for a day, and finally made his way 
into Texas. 

O'Kelly had seen too much of real warfare to 
have any faith in unarmed crowds, and he was 
one of those who opposed any attempt at insur- 
rection. These counsels did not prevail, and in 



412 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

1865 there came some sporadic risings with their 
sad sequel of wholesale arrests, imprisonments, 
and long terms of penal servitude. By-and-by the 
movement began to be more serious, and in 1867 
there seemed some hope. O'Kelly then took his 
share of the danger and the responsibility, and 
was one of the chief men of the movement. For 
years he had to pass through the never-ceasing 
strain, the strange under-ground life, of the revo- 
lutionary. O'Kelly passed through it all with that 
calm courage and that cool-headedness which 
everybody recognizes, and, through determination, 
vigilance and prudence, succeeded in coming out 
unscathed. During the Franco-Prussian war he 
rejoined the French army, but when Paris sur- 
rendered he again left the service, and once 
more went to New York. Up to this time he 
had not seriously contemplated adopting journal- 
ism as a profession, and his efforts had been con- 
fined to occasional correspondence in the National 
weeklies. He applied for a situation on the 
New York Herald, and his application — like that 
of most beginners — was received coolly enough ; 
but at last he got his opportunity. Mr. O'Kelly 
was gradually advanced, until he became one of 
the editors of the Herald. In 1873 there arose an 
opportunity which O'Kelly gladly embraced. The 
rebellion in Cuba was going on, and it was. a 
movement in which the people of the United 
States took a keen interest. But what was the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 4J;} 

nature and what the methods of the rebels? 
These were points upon which no trustworthy 
information could be obtained. The Spaniards 
had the ear of the world, and the story they told 
was that there was no such thing as a rebellion 
at all. What now remained was simply a few 
scores of scattered marauders, itinerant robbers 
and murderers. Cuban refugees in the United 
States circulated reports that the Spanish troops 
were guilty of horrible cruelties ; that they gave 
no quarter to men and foully abused women, and 
the rebellion, instead of being repressed, was 
represented as fiercer and more determined than 
ever. The rebels, few or many, were hidden be- 
hind the impenetrable forests of the country as 
completely as if they had ceased to exist. To 
reach these rebels, survey their forces — in short, 
attest their existence — was the duty which O'Kelly 
volunteered to undertake. 

O'Kelly knew when he set out that his task 
was difficult enough, but it was not until he ar- 
rived in Cuba that he realized to the full the 
meaning of his enterprise. He asked a safe- 
conduct from the captain-general ; but that func- 
tionary plainly told him that, if he persisted in try- 
ing to get to the rebels, he would do so at his own 
risk. Throughout all Cuba there was a perfect 
reign of terror. Tribunals hastily tried even those 
suspected of treason, and within a few hours after 
his arrest the " suspect " was a riddled corpse. 



414 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Any person who, therefore, was under the frown 
of the authorities was avoided as if he had the 
plague. O'Kelly was invited to dinner in the 
heartiest manner by a descendant of an Irishman, 
but when this gentleman heard of O'Kelly's mis- 
sion, he begged him not to pay the visit, and 
promptly went to the authorities to explain the 
unlucky invitation. O'Kelly was among a people 
a vast number of whom would have considered it 
a patriotic duty to dispose of his person by some 
quiet but effective method. " It was not pos- 
sible," writes O'Kelly in 'The Mambi Land' — the 
interesting volume in which he afterwards re- 
counted his adventures — "it was not possible to 
turn back without dishonor, and though it cost 
even life itself, I would have to visit the Cuban 
camp." O'Kelly finally accomplished his purpose 
in full, but only at extreme risks. He afterwards 
returned boldly to the Spanish lines, and was im- 
prisoned, barely escaping with his life. He at 
last was sent to Spain, and then, through the 
united efforts of General Sickles, Senor Castelar 
and Isaac Butt, was set at liberty. 

His next expedition after the visit to Cuba was 
to Brazil. He returned with the emperor from 
that country to the United States, and accom- 
panied him throughout his North American tour. 

Before the general election of 1880 O'Kelly 
returned to Europe, without the least intention 
of entering Parliament. At that time, though 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 41 5 

known to everybody acquainted with the inner 
life of Irish politics, to the general public he was 
unknown, except as the adventurous special cor- 
respondent. And it was some surprise when he 
succeeded in beating down so formidable an op- 
ponent as The O'Conor Don. Regarded by the 
majority of his countrymen as outside politics, and 
remote from its struggles, its aspirations, and its 
shaping, O'Kelly had been a force in fashioning 
the history of his country for many years. In 
Parliament, too, O'Kelly has, while little known to 
the public, been one of the most potent forces in 
shaping the fortunes and decisions of his party. 
He has brought to its councils great firmness of 
will, world-wide experience, common sense and 
a devotion to the interests of his country which is 
absolute. Though he has given proof abundant 
of courage, O'Kelly's advice has always been on 
the side of well-calculated rather than rash courses; 
he has, in fact, the true soldier's instinct in favor 
of the adaptation of ways and means to ends, of 
mathematical severity in estimating the strength 
of the forces for, and of the forces against, his own 
side. His whole temperament is revolutionary; 
he chafes under the restraints of Parliamentary 
life, and hates the weary contests of words ; and, 
on the other hand, he insists on every step being 
measured, every move calculated. Again, his 
large experience of life and the ruggedness of his 
sense give to his thoughts the mould of almost 



416 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

cynic realism, and yet he is an idealist, for through- 
out his whole life he has held to the idea of his 
country's resurrection with a faith which no 
danger could terrify, no disaster depress, no labor 
fatigue. 

Mr. John Dillon, as often happens, is the very 
opposite in appearance and manner from what 
readers of his speeches, especially the hostile 
readers, would expect. Tall, thin, frail, his 
physique is that of a man who has periodically to 
seek flight from death in change of scene and of 
air. His face is lono- and narrow : the features 
singularly delicate and refined. Coal-black hair 
and large, dark, tranquil eyes, make up a face 
that immediately arrests attention, and that can 
never be forgotten. A tranquil voice and a gentle 
manner would combat the idea that this was one 
of the protagonists in one of the fiercest struggles 
of modern times. The speeches of Mr. Dillon 
are violent in their conclusions only. The propo- 
sitions which have so often shocked unsympa- 
thetic hearers are reached by him through calcu- 
lations of apparent frigidity, and are delivered in 
an unimpassioned monotone. 

Mr. John Dillon is the son of the well-known 
John Blake Dillon, one of the bravest and purest 
spirits in the Young Ireland movement. His 
father was one of those who opposed the rising 
to the last moment as imprudent and hopeless; 
but was among the first to risk liberty and life 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. H7 

when it was finally resolved upon. John was 
born in Blackrock, County Dublin, in the year 
185 1. He was mainly instructed in the institu- 
tions connected with the Catholic University. 
He was intended for the medical profession, and 
passed through the courses of lectures, and took 
the degree of Licentiate in the College of Sur- 
geons. It was not until after the arrival of John 
Mitchel in Ireland, after his many years of exile, 
that Dillon first appeared in the political arena. 
He then took an active part in the electoral con* 
test, and helped to get Mitchel returned. The 
rise of Mr. Parnell and the active policy brought 
Mr. Dillon more prominently to the front. At 
once he became an ea^er advocate of Mr. Parnell 
and his policy. 

Edmund Leamy was born in Waterford, on 
Christmas Day, 1848. Waterford is one of the. 
towns which, amid the terrible eclipse over the 
rest of Ireland, shone out with something of a 
national spirit. An influence that made him a 
combatant in the national ranks was the early 
companionship of Thomas Sexton. When the 
election of 1874 came, he was an apprentice in a 
solicitor's office. In 1880 Leamy was put for- 
ward by one section of the constituency, and was 
returned. There is no man in the party whose 
real abilities and services bear so little resem- 
blance to his public reputation. A touch of the 
Paddy-go-aisy spirit, a curious love for self- 



41 8 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

effacement, have hidden him from public view ; 
but to his colleagues he is known as having 
one of the keenest and most original intellects, 
and one of the most stirring tongues of the Irish 
party. 

On the first day of the meeting of the Irish 
party the chair was occupied by the Lord Mayor 
of Dublin — the distinguished patriot, E. Dwyer 
Gray, M. P. Mr. Gray is the son of the late 
Sir John Gray. He was born in the year 1846. 
Brought up from his earliest youth in the opin- 
ions of his father, he attained at an early age a 
correct judgment of political affairs. The mind 
of the son is even clearer than that of his father, 
and refuses steadily to accept any doctrine or 
course until it has been fully thought out. Gray 
succeeded his father in the management of the 
Freeman s Jonr7ial, the chief newspaper of Ire- 
land. Becoming a member of the Dublin Cor- 
poration, of which his father had been the guid- 
ing star for many years, he soon attained to the 
position of its leading figure. At this period he 
was Lord Mayor, and had under his control vast 
sums which had been subscribed for the relief of 
distress. Gray had been returned to the House 
of Commons shortly after the death of his father, 
and though not a frequent, was already, as he is 
still, one of its most influential debaters. There 
is no man in the Irish party, and few outside it, 
who can state a case with such pellucid clearness. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ft 9 

Pre-eminent among the noble band of patriots 
who have, for years, been battling for Ireland's 
rights, and ventilating her fearful wrongs ; noted 
for his abilities as a scholar, an orator, and a 
journalist, stands the Hon. Thomas Power 
O'Connor, M. P. 

This brilliant journalist and gifted author was 
born in the year 1848, in the historic old market- 
town of Athlone, which is situated in the counties 
of Westmeath and Roscommon, and stands almost 
in the geographical centre of Ireland. His early 
studies were at the College of the Immaculate 
Conception, at Athlone, where, among his many 
competitors, he was conspicuous for his aptness 
to learn and ability to teach others that informa- 
tion which he himself had just acquired at the 
hands of his reverend instructors. He subse- 
quently entered the University of Ireland, from 
which he received the degree of Bachelor of 
Arts, and in due course that of Master of Arts 
also. 

After his graduation, and having acquired a 
taste for literary pursuits, he connected himself 
with one of the most prominent journals of Dublin, 
and for three years subsequently he remained in 
that city, and contributed during that period a 
vast amount of historic and other valuable matter 
to the literature of the day. Desirous of a wider 
field in which to display his many talents, he 
removed to London and accepted a leading posi- 



.{20 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tion on the staff of one of its most widely known 
newspapers, the Daily Telegraph. 

He served afterwards on various other journals, 
gaining everywhere a well-earned reputation for 
his versatility, and the force and clearness of his 
writings. 

Among the many attractive and useful works 
of which he was author the first volume which he 
published was a "Life of Beaconsfield," in 1880. 
It attracted considerable attention in Great Britain 
and Ireland, and later on he recast the work, 
publishing it in an enlarged form under the title 
of " Lord Beaconsfield. A Biography." It was an 
able and strongly written book, and attracted 
universal attention, not less through the clearness 
of its style and the accuracy of its statements 
and quotations, than through the terribly caustic 
and scathing criticisms which he visited upon the 
public acts of the great Tory leader. It is not to 
be wondered at that its contents excited the 
wrath of Beaconsfield's admirers in England and 
elsewhere. 

It was in 1880 that our gifted author began his 
parliamentary career. In that year he success- 
fully contested the county of Galway, and before 
its close he had earned his spurs as an intrepid 
and fearless debater in the many oratorical contests 
in which he and other noted Irish, Scotch, and 
English speakers of acknowledged ability, partici- 
pated. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 421 

The promise that he then gave of future useful- 
ness for Ireland and Ireland's cause has been 
carried out to the letter. 

Let us follow his subsequent career. He has, 
since 1880, been twice chosen to the House of 
Commons from the "Scotland District" of the 
great commercial city of Liverpool, and on each 
occasion by a large and nattering majority. 

In 1 88 1 he visited the United States, and made 
a highly successful lecturing tour, the proceeds 
of which, amounting to a very large sum of money, 
he unselfishly devoted to the Irish patriotic 
cause. 

In 1883 his high executive ability caused his 
unanimous elevation to the presidency of the Irish 
National League of Great Britain, in which tryino- 
position his cool, dispassionate judgment carried 
the League through many dangerous and difficult 
situations ; dangerous and difficult so far as its 
immediate prosperity and the success which at- 
tended its influence, at home and abroad, were 
concerned. Always a busy man, he found, or 
rather made, time enough for himself to edit 
"The Cabinet of Irish Literature," and to write a 
large number of tales, essays, and review articles. 
His later articles included "The Parnell Move- 
ment," which was published in 1885, an d the 
present work, of which he and Mr. Robert M. 
McWade, a well-known journalist of Philadelphia, 
are joint authors. 



25 



422 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Among the leaders in the Old Country, of the 
great movement for Irish Nationality, he takes, 
as we have said, a high rank by reason of his 
great intelligence, untiring industry, and hearty 
devotion to the cause. 

During his Parliamentary career his journal- 
istic labors have not been relaxed, notwithstanding 
the magnitude and complexion of his other public 
duties. His voice has never given forth an un- 
certain sound. He possesses that essential char- 
acteristic of a great orator — he knows when to 
speak, and when to be silent. When he strikes, 
his blows go straight home to the mark, and they 
never lack in force. 

Among the younger members of his party in 
Parliament, his unceasing vigilance and strong de- 
cision of character have obtained for him a po- 
sition of tacitly recognized premiership. Though 
his majorities for the English constituency which 
he has so long represented in the British Imperial 
Parliament have largely come from the English 
masses, he is known on this, as on the other side 
of the ocean, as being, first, last, and always an 
Irishman of the most intense type. 

The men who love Ireland best, and stand 
highest in the love and affection of her people, 
have invariably been able to count, without any 
mental or other reservation, upon the earnest 
patriotism and the whole-souled fidelity of Thomas 
Power O'Connor. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 423 

Timothy Michael Healy was born in Bantry, 
County Cork, in the year 1855. He had peculiar 
opportunities indeed for becoming familiar with 
the awful horrors of the famine, for his father, at 
seventeen years of age, had been appointed 
Clerk of the Union at Bantry. He has told his 
son that for the three famine years he never once 
saw a single smile. It is no wonder that Healy, 
whose nature is vehement and excitable, should 
have grown up with a burning hatred of English 
rule. 

Young Healy went to school with the Christian 
Brothers, at Fermoy ; but fortune did not permit 
him to waste any unnecessary time in what are 
called the seats of learning; for at thirteen he 
had to set out on making a livelihood. Though 
he has thus had fewer opportunities than almost 
any other member of the House of Commons of 
obtaining education— except such as his father, an 
educated man, may have imparted to him as a 
child — he is really one of the very best informed 
men in the place. He is intimately acquainted 
with not only English but also with French and 
with German literature, and could give his 
critics lessons in what constitutes literary merit. 
Another of the accomplishments which Mr. 
Healy taught himself was Pitman's shorthand ; 
and shorthand in his case was the sword with 
which he had in life's beginning to open the 
oyster of the world. At sixteen years of age he 



424 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

went to England anc j obtained a situation as a 



<-> 



shorthand clerk in the office of the superin- 
tendent of the North Eastern Railway, at New- 
castle. 

English contemporary chronicles are not only 
full of his name, but absolutely teem with par- 
ticulars of his life, especially in its earliest years. 
Society journals have, on various occasions, espe- 
cially busied themselves with him, and, according 
to these veracious organs, Mr. Healy began life 
in a rag-and-bone shop, and, after much labor, 
graduated into a ticket-nipper. In various other 
journals there have been equally lively accounts. 
Mr. Healy has been described as ignorant and 
impudent, as foolish and as crafty, as rolling in 
ill-gotten wealth and as buried in abysmal pov- 
erty. There is no man of any Parliamentary 
party, in fact, of which so many portraits have 
been painted, and who has had to bear so many 
of these slings and arrows which the outrageous 
pens of hostile journalism can fling. 

This man, before whom ministers grow pale, is 
the delight and the darling of children, whose 
tastes and pleasures he can minister to with the 
unteachable instinct of genius. In 1878 he re- 
moved to London, partly for commercial and 
partly for journalistic reasons. After migrat- 
ing to London he was asked to contribute a 
weekly letter to the Nation on Parliamentary 
proceedings, which had just begun to get lively. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 425 

From this time forward his face accordingly 
became familiar in the lobby of the House of 
Commons. He at once threw all his force on 
the side of the " active " section of the old Home 
Rule party, and Mr. Parnell has several times re- 
marked that it was to Mr. Healy's advocacy of 
his policy that the active party owed much of 
its success in those early days. In the opinion 
of many, his pen is even more effective than his 
tongue ; mordant, happy illustration, trenchant 
argument — all these things are still happily at 
the service of Irish national journalism. Per- 
haps the most remarkable of all Mr. Healy's qual- 
ities is his restless industry. From the moment 
he crosses the floor of the lobby till the House 
rises, he is literally never a moment at rest — 
excepting the half hour or so he spends at 
dinner in the restaurant within the House. He 
has almost as many correspondents as a minister, 
and he tries to answer nearly every letter on the 
day of its receipt. Then he takes an interest in, 
and knows all about, everything that is going on, 
great or small, English, or Irish, or Scotch. The 
extent of his knowledge of Parliamentary measures 
is astonishing ; Healy holds himself at the service 
of everybody. And he is never absent from the 
House when anything of importance is going for- 
ward. He is, like the Premier, distinguished from 
other members by the fact that even in the division 
lobbies he is to be seen utilizing the precious 



426 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

moments by writing. The characteristics of his 
oratory are rather peculiar. Often when he 
stands up first he is tame, disjointed, and in- 
effective, but he is one of the men who gather 
strength and fire as they go along ; and before he 
has resumed his seat he has said some things that 
have set all the House laughing, and some that 
have put all the House into a rage. Finally, 
Healy has the defects of his qualities. The 
ardor of his temperament and the fierceness of 
his convictions often tempt him to exaggeration 
of language and of conduct. Those who play 
the complicated game of politics for such mighty 
stakes as a nation's fate and the destinies of 
millions ought to keep cool heads and steady 
hands. A quick temper and a sharp tongue 
cause many pangs to his friends, but keener 
tortures to Healy himself. 

William O'Brien was brought up from his 
earliest years in those principles of which he has 
become so prominent and so vigorous an ad- 
vocate. O'Brien's father was one of the most 
resolute spirits of the Young Ireland party; but 
afterwards, like so many of the men who survived 
that time, was by no means friendly to bloodshed 
or physical force. In time he had to remon- 
strate with some of his own offspring for their 
Fenianism, but his mouth was closed whenever his 
remonstrances became vehement by an allusion 
to the days of his own youth. William O'Brien 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 427 

was born on October 2, 1852, in Mallow, with 
which town his family on the mother's side has 
been connected from time immemorial. He 
received his education at Cloyne Diocesan 
College. William from his earliest years had 
the same principles as he professes to-day. 
Apart from the example of his father, he had in 
his brother a strong apostle of national rights. 
This brother was indeed of a type to captivate 
the imagination of such a nature as that of his 
younger brother. Among the revolutionaries of 
his district he was the chief figure, and there was 
no raid for arms too desperate, or no expedition 
too risky for his spirit. He was arrested, of course, 
when the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended, 
and underwent the misery and tortures which 
were inflicted on untried prisoners under the 
best of possible constitutions and freest of pos- 
sible governments. With this episode in the 
life of the elder brother the brightness of the life 
of William O'Brien for many a long day ceased. 
His family history is strangely and terribly sad. 

The first noteworthy thing which William 
O'Brien ever wrote was a sketch of the trial of 
Captain Mackay. This attracted the attention of 
the proprietor of the Cork Daily Herald and 
he was offered an engagement upon that paper. 
There he remained until towards 1876, when he 
became a member of the staff of the Freeman s 
Journal. He did the ordinary work of the re- 



428 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

porter for several years, with occasional dashes 
into more congenial occupation. Whenever his 
work had any connection with the condition or 
prospects of his country he devoted himself to it 
with a special fervor. When the Coercion Act 
was passed in 1880, he thought the moment had 
come for him to offer his services to maintain the 
fight in face of threats of danger. His health, 
however, was at the time so weak that his friends 
feared that the imprisonment which was almost 
certain to follow employment by the League would 
prove fatal to his constitution, and he was dis- 
suaded from joining the ranks of the movement. 
In June, 1881, when the conflict between Mr. 
Forster and the Land League was at its fiercest, 
the idea occurred of establishing a newspaper as 
an organ of the League and Parnellite party, 
and he was invited by Mr. Parnell to found 
United Ireland 2.w A to become its editor. 

Great as was his reputation as a writer of 
nervous English, he had hitherto been unknown 
as the author of political articles, and few were 
prepared for the grasp and force of the editorials 
he contributed to the new journal. O'Brien is 
the very embodiment of the militant journalist. 
Though he has keen literary instincts and a fine 
soul, his work is important to him mainly because 
of its political result. Fragile in frame and weak 
in health, he is yet above all things a combatant, 
ready and almost eager to meet danger. A long, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 429 

thin face, deep-set and piercing eyes, flashing out 
from behind spectacles, sharp features, and quick, 
feverish walk — the whole appearance of the man 
speaks of a restless and enthusiastic character. 

United Ireland was suppressed by Mr. Forster, 
but, with the overthrow of Mr. Forster, the paper 
was again revived. It soon became evident that 
United Ireland was about to enter upon a 
struggle fiercer than even that with Mr. Forster. 
It seemed as if the country would lie paralyzed 
under the regime of packed juries and partisan 
judges. In the stillness which came over the 
country under such a regime, the voice of 
United Ireland rang out clear and loud and 
defiant as ever. The partisanship of the judges 
was ruthlessly attacked, the shameful packing of 
juries was exposed, and attention was called to 
the protestations of innocence that came from so 
many dying lips. In this period it was held that 
no such criticism was permissible, and Lord 
Spencer resolved to crush the fearless and bril- 
liant journalist. Then began that long and lonely 
duel between Mr. O'Brien and Earl Spencer which 
lasted with scarce an interruption for three fierce 
years. 

The contest was opened by an action against 
Mr. O'Brien for "seditious libel." The meaning: 
of seditious libel is any attack upon the Admin- 
istration not agreeable to the officials then in 
power. An action of this character is, of course, 



430 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

no longer possible in England. In the midst of 
this trial a vacancy arose in the representation 
of Mallow. It had been arranged before, that 
whenever the General Election came, Mr. 
O'Brien, as a Mallow man, should appeal to the 
town to join the rest of the country in the de- 
mand for Irish rights. The opportunity had 
come sooner than anybody had anticipated. 
The prosecution of O'Brien by the Government 
lent a singular character to the struggle, and a 
further element of significance was added by the 
Government sending down Mr. Naish, their new 
Attorney-General, as his opponent. Mallow 
had been a favorite ground for the race of cor- 
rupt place-hunters in the period when a place in 
Parliament was the only avenue to legal pro- 
motion. 

The contest for Mallow, under circumstances 
like these, attracted an immense amount of atten- 
tion, and all Ireland looked to the result with eager- 
ness. But the reputation of Mallow had been 
so bad for so many years that the utmost expec- 
tation was that Mr. O'Brien would be returned 
by a small majority. The change that had come 
over all Ireland was shown when it was found 
that O'Brien had been returned by a majority of 72. 

John E. Redmond is one of the orators of 
the Irish party. He speaks with clearness, cour- 
tesy and at the same time with deadly vigor. He 
is the man of all others to put into a difficult 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 431 

situation — cool, self-controlled, a perfect master 
of fence. There is no Scylla or Charybdis 
through which he cannot steer the barque of his 
words. He has done enormous service to the 
cause by speeches in Australia and America, and 
there is no man who produces more effect in the 
House of Commons in favor of his own side. 

Timothy Harrington is the organizer par 
excelletice among the Irish members. He is a 
man of extraordinary energy of character, men- 
tal and physical. No amount of work is capable 
of fatiguing him. He has lived through a half- 
dozen imprisonments, occasionally with the plank- 
bed and prison-board, and has come out looking 
more robust, more energetic and as kindly as 
ever. He is a curious mixture of the apostle 
and the soldier — overflowing with the milk of 
human kindness and at the same time with an in- 
satiate desire to " boss," to organize and win — a 
curious combination of St. Vincent de Paul and 
General Grant. He is at this moment the prac- 
tical Governor of Ireland. As Secretary of the 
National League he has that immense oro-ani- 
zation entirely under his control. He rules with 
a kindly but yet with a firm hand, bullies and 
cajoles, argues and vituperates, makes long 
speeches and dictates long letters and all the time 
beams upon the world and looks for new regions 
to conquer and to lick into shape. People occa- 
sionally quarrel with him, but everybody admires 



432 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

him and his intimates love him. He has one of 
the best and kindliest and most sincere of na- 
tures. He was a newspaper editor until the Land 
.League agitation brought him into public life. 
He threw himself into the struggle with his whole 
soul, and was soon one of the most potent mem- 
bers of the organization. 

At this point we resume our sketch of the Par- 
liamentary campaign of 1886. The 8th of April 
was fixed as the day for Mr. Gladstone to unfold 
his new Irish policy. Never in the whole course of 
his great career had he an audience more splen- 
did. Every seat in every gallery was crowded. 
The competition for places in the House itself 
had led to scenes unprecedented in the history of 
that assembly. The Irish members were of 
course more anxious than any others to secure a 
good position. The English members were not 
quite so early as the Irish, but they were not far 
behind ; and lone before noon there was not a 
seat left for any newcomer. Mr. Gladstone's 
speech began by showing the state of social 
order in Ireland. Then he asked the question 
whether Coercion had succeeded in keeping down 
crime. He pointed out that exceptional legis- 
lation which introduces exceptional provisions 
into the law ought itself to be in its own nature 
essentially and absolutely exceptional, and it 
has become not exceptional but habitual. Then 
he proceeded to give a reason why Coercion 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 433 

had failed. Having proved that Coercion was 
no longer applicable to the case of Ireland he 
went on to ask whether there was no alternative. 
He went on to say that he did not think the 
people of England and Scotland would again 
resort to such ferocious Coercion as he had 
described, until it had exhausted every other 
alternative. He then showed that England and 
Scotland have each a much nearer approach to 
autonomy under Parliament than Ireland has. 
He next discussed the possibility of reconciling 
local self-government with imperial unity, and 
after that treated, in a masterly way, the nature 
of the present union of the kingdoms under one 
Parliament. He discussed in a summary way 
several of the solutions which had been proposed 
for the difficulties which the case involved, show- 
ing their insufficiency. He then announced his 
own plan of giving Ireland a local administra- 
tion and a local Parliament for home affairs, and 
at the same time gave reasons for rejecting the 
idea of giving Irish representatives seats in the 
Houses of the British Parliament, the Irish mem- 
bers to have a vote on imperial affairs. He gave it 
as his opinion that the fiscal unity of the empire 
should be maintained, except as regards moneys 
raised by local taxation for local purposes. He 
then showed that Ireland needed administrative 
as well as legislative independence. He an- 
nounced the plan of reserving certain subjects with 



434 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

which the Irish legislature should have no power 
to deal, such as the succession, regencies, pre- 
rogatives, and other matters pertaining to the 
Crown ; the army and navy ; foreign and colonial 
relations ; certain already established and char- 
tered rio-hts ; the establishment or endowment 
of any particular religion ; the laws of coinage, 
trade and navigation — these subjects being re- 
served for imperial legislation. He then pro- 
posed a plan on which the Irish legislature 
might be organized ; suggested the powers and 
prerogatives of the Viceroy and of his Privy 
Council ; and announced a plan by which the 
financial relations of Ireland to the rest of the 
Empire might be established. He next criti- 
cised as wasteful the present expenditure of public 
money in Ireland, and discussed the Irish ex- 
chequer and the future of Irish credit. In dis- 
cussing the financial part of his scheme for Home 
Rule Mr. Gladstone made some very suggestive 
remarks : 

" I will state only one other striking fact with 
regard to the Irish expenditure. The House 
would like to know what an amount has been 
going on — and which at this moment is going on 
— of what I must call not only a waste of public 
money, but a demoralizing waste of public money, 
demoralizing in its influence upon both countries. 
The civil charges per capita at this moment are 
in Great Britain Ss. 2d. and in Ireland 16s. They 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 435 

have increased in Ireland in the last fifteen years 
by sixty-three per cent., and my belief is that if 
the present legislative and administrative systems 
be maintained you must make up your minds to 
a continued, never-ending - , and never-to-be-limited 
augmentation. The amount of the Irish contri- 
bution upon the basis I have described would be 
as follows : One-fifteenth of the annual debt 
charge of ,£22,000,000 would be ,£1,466,000, one- 
fifteenth of the army and navy charge, after ex- 
cluding what we call war votes, and also excluding 
the charges for volunteers and yeomanry, would 
be ,£1,666,000, and the amount of the civil 
charges, which are properly considered imperial, 
would entail upon Ireland ,£110,000, or a total 
charge properly imperial of ,£3,242,000. I am 
now ready to present what I may call an Irish 
budget, a debtor and creditor account for the 
Irish exchequer. The customs produce in Ire- 
land a gross sum of ,£1,880,000, the excise 
,£4,300,000, the stamps ,£600,000, the income- 
tax ,£550,000 and the non-tax revenue, including 
the post office, ,£1,020,000. And, perhaps, here 
again I ought to mention as an instance of the 
demoralizing waste which now attends Irish ad- 
ministration, that which will perhaps surprise the 
House to know — namely, that while in England 
and Scotland we levy from the post office and 
telegraph system a large surplus income ; in 
Ireland the post office and the telegraphs just. 



43fl GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

pay their expenses, or leave a surplus so smail as 
not to be worth mentioning*-. 

" The total receipts of the Irish' Exchequer are 
thus shown to amount to ,£8,350,000, and against 
that I have to place an imperial' contribution 
which I may call permanent, because it will last 
for a great number of years, of £"3,242,000. I put 
down £"1,000,000 for the constabulary, because 
that would be a first charge, although I hope that 
it will soon come under very effective reduction. 
I put down £"2,510,000 for the other civil charges 
in Ireland, and there, again, I have not the 
smallest doubt that that charge will likewise be 
very effectually reduced by an Irish Government. 
Finally, the collection of revenue is £"834,000, 
making a total charge thus far of £"7,586,000. 
Then we have thought it essential to include in 
this arrangement, not only for our own sakes, but 
for the sake of Ireland also, a payment on account 
of the Sinking Fund against the Irish portion of 
the National Debt. The Sinking Fund is now 
paid for the whole National Debt. We have now 
to allot a certain portion of that debt to Ireland. 
We think it necessary to maintain that Sinking 
Fund, and especially for the interest of Ireland. 
When Ireland gets the management of her own 
affairs, I venture to prophesy that she will want 
for useful purposes, to borrow money. But the 
difficulty of that operation will be enormously 
higher or lower according to the condition of her 




GLADSTONE PRESENTING THE HOME RULE BILL, 1886. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 437 

public credit. Her public credit is not yet born. 
It has yet to lie like an infant in the cradle, and it 
may require a good deal of nursing, but no nurs- 
ing would be effectual unless it were plain and 
palpable to the eye of the whole world that Ire- 
land had provision in actual working order for 
discharging her old obligations so as to make it 
safe for her to contract new obligations more 
nearly allied to her own immediate wants. I 
therefore put down three-quarters of a million for 
Sinking Fund. That makes the total charge 
£7,946,000, against a total income of ,£8,350,000, 
or a surplus of £404,000. But I can state to the 
House that that £404,000 is a part only of the 
Fund, which, under the present state of things, it 
would be the duty of the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer of the three countries to present to you 
for the discharge of our collective expenditure." 

The speech wound up with the following pero- 
ration : " I ask you to show to Europe and to 
America that we too can face political problems 
which America twenty years ago faced, and which 
many countries in Europe have been called upon 
to face and have not feared to deal with. I ask 
that in our own case we should practise with firm 
and fearless hand what we have so often preached 
— the doctrine which we have so often inculcated 
upon others — namely, that the concession of local 
self-government is not the way to sap or impair, 
but the way to strengthen and consolidate, unity. 

26 



438 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

I ask that we should learn to rely less upon merely 
written stipulations, and more upon those better 
stipulations which are written on the heart and 
mind of man. I ask that we should apply to Ire- 
land that happy experience which we have gained 
in England anc | J n Scotland, where the course of 
eenerations has now taught us, not as a dream 
or a theory but as practice and as life, that the 
best and surest foundation we can find to build 
upon is the foundation afforded by the affections, 
the convictions, and the will of the nation ; and 
it is thus, by the decree of the Almighty, that we 
may be enabled to secure at once the social peace, 
the fame, the power, and the permanence of the 
Empire." 

The speech was eminently judicious in its tone. 
The eagerness of the House to hear its interest- 
ing details was so great that even faction was 
silent, and Mr. Gladstone was allowed to proceed 
calmly to the end. Immediately afterwards, on 
Friday, the 16th of April, Mr. Gladstone brought 
in the Land Purchase Bill. It will suffice for the 
present to say that the main object of that bill 
was to issue fifty millions worth of stock for the 
purpose of enabling the Irish tenants to become 
proprietors of the Irish soil. The Land Purchase 
Bill played no other part in Parliament of itself, 
never having been brought beyond the stage 
of its introduction, but it had an indirect influence 
of a fatal character. The Land Purchase Bill, in 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 439 

fact, more than anything else killed Home Rule. 
The Home Rule Bill was immediately attacked 
from different points, by Lord Hartington, by Mr. 
Chamberlain, by Mr. Goschen, by Sir George 
Trevelyan. The attacks were not, however, very 
damaging. Mr. Chamberlain and Sir George 
Trevelyan met the bill by counter-proposals which 
were obviously ridiculous. Lord Hartington and 
Mr. Goschen were more adroit and confined them- 
selves to strictly destructive criticism. The for- 
tunes of the bill rose and fell every day. A 
large number of the Liberal party were found to 
be without any settled convictions on the ques- 
tion. It became evident as time went on that 
Mr. Gladstone would have to make desperate 
efforts to carry his bill, and he certainly did make 
desperate efforts. Grave objection had been taken 
to the exclusion of Irish members for Westmin- 
ster. He promised to meet the objection and 
allow their return to Westminster on certain con- 
ditions. Finally it had been suggested that the 
bills had come upon the public mind too rap- 
idly. He agreed accordingly to drop the Home 
Rule Bill and to reintroduce it in an autumn sit- 
ting. The Tories and the Whigs accordingly made 
a final attack on Mr. Gladstone the following day. 
Mr. Gladstone defended himself with warmth, and 
practically repeated the same things he had said 
in the Foreign Office speech. But the waverers 
among his followers professed to find a difference 



440 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

between the two speeches. Mr. Chamberlain 
called a meeting of his followers on the following- 
Monday, and a resolution was passed pledging 
the members present to vote against the second 
reading, and the fate of the bill was sealed. 

The division took place on June 7th amid scenes 
of intense excitement. Mr. Gladstone wound up 
the debate in a speech which was universally re- 
garded as one of the finest he had ever delivered. 
He went over the whole ground, clearly recapit- 
ulated and destroyed all objections, and wound 
up with an appeal perhaps the most noble of any 
throughout all his magnificent series of addresses 
on this question. But eloquence and reason were 
lost upon the dull heads and the malignant hearts 
that had determined to humiliate the lofty genius 
whose magnanimity rebuked their petty mean- 
ness. When the division was taken there were 
for the bill 311, against 341. Then ensued a 
scene of wild excitement. The Tories cheered 
themselves hoarse ; the Irish remained for a time 
silent, and when the Tory cheers died away they 
rose to their feet and cheered back in defiance. 

There were tumultuous scenes meantime out- 
side the House, and some free fighting, but at last 
the noise died away and the mad scene had come 
to a close. A few days afterwards the ministers 
announced that they had resolved to dissolve Par- 
liament, and the battle was now transferred from 
the House of Commons to the constituencies. 



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CHAPTER XII. 

THE APPEAL TO THE COUNTRY. 

WHEN the appeal to the country began 
the signs were favorable to the Govern- 
ment. Throughout the whole of the country the 
Liberal associations founded by Mr. Chamber- 
lain had met, and with scarcely an exception had 
pronounced against the men who refused to do 
justice to Ireland. Even Mr. Chamberlain him- 
self had not been spared, and at a crowded 
meeting a resolution had been carried against 
him with very little dissent. The working classes 
gave testimony in favor of # the Irish cause. No 
Irishman, indeed, who has gone through this 
crisis has failed to be deeply impressed with the 
attitude of the English, Scotch and Welsh de- 
mocracy. Whatever misgivings or divisions there 
were among other sections of society, there was 
scarcely any among the masses of the people. 
They were not only favorable to the policy of 
Mr. Gladstone, but they were enthusiastic in its 
favor. Opponents of the measure could scarcely 
get a hearing. Mr. Richard Chamberlain, who 
had followed his brother in attacking the policy 

445 



446 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of the Government, was unable after a time to 
hold any meetings whatever. 

But all this time the enemies of Mr. Gladstone 
were at work. Lord Harrington went from one 
part of the country to the other, everywhere de- 
nouncing the policy of the Prime Minister. His 
speeches were, however, marked by dignity, self- 
control and perfect freedom from mean or ma- 
levolent insinuation. Mr. Goschen worked even 
harder, and spoke in every part of the country. 
He also, though he spoke strongly, spoke with 
becoming decorum, except when dealing with the 
unfortunate Irish members. But Mr. Chamber- 
lain threw off the mask completely, and attacked 
the Prime Minister in language of most vindictive 
bitterness. He brought all sorts of charges 
against him, but the climax was reached in 
Cardiff, where he suggested that Mr. Gladstone 
had consulted American revolutionaries before 
formulating his policy. Of course the charge 
was utterly untrue ; but it produced a startling 
and tremendous effect. From all parts of the 
great hall came shouts of "Traitor! Traitor!" 
Nor did Mr. Chamberlain fight the battle with 
honesty on any point, but consummate duplicity 
was freely employed. 

Mr. Bright finally joined in the combination 
against the Prime Minister. He also dealt at 
great length with the question of Land Purchase, 
but he was almost as uncandid on this point as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 447 

Mr. Chamberlain. In the Land Act of 1870 there 
were clauses which are known as the Bright 
clauses. These clauses deal entirely with the 
question of Land Purchase. They are the first 
enactments on the British Statute Book in favor 
of allowing the tenants to become the owners of 
their holdings with the assistance ot the State, and 
in fact the idea of land purchase first became a 
part of practical politics through Mr. Bright him- 
self. He is the father of the whole policy. 

Previous to 1880 he made several speeches in 
Ireland and elsewhere, in which he laid down that 
the real settlement of the land difficulty of Ire- 
land was a vast and wholesale scheme of land 
purchase. He now attacked Mr. Gladstone for 
carrying out a policy which he himself had been 
the strongest to advocate. He also took up 
stronger ground than almost any other opponent 
of Mr. Gladstone's policy To any Parliament of 
any kind whatever in Dublin he declared himself 
entirely opposed, 

There were various other causes which con- 
tributed to defeat Mr. Gladstone. Many people 
throughout the country were deeply concerned for 
the safety of the Irish Protestants, ignorant of the 
central fact of Irish history that National move- 
ments have, with the single exception of O'Con- 
nell's, always had Protestants as their leaders, and 
that the present leader of the Irish party is a Prot- 
estant, and that in electoral matters many of the 



448 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

fiercest struggles have been on the side of a 
Protestant Nationalist aq-ainst a Catholic Whig - . 
The " No-Popery " cry has not died out in Eng- 
land, but represents a force that is not spent. 

-But the thing above all others which proved 
effective against the Government was the Land 
Purchase scheme. Under the bill of Mr. Glad- 
stone there would not have been the possibility 
of the loss of a farthing to the British exchequer ; 
but Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Bright, and a great 
many others repeated it so often that it was finally 
believed that the meaning of the bill was that the 
British taxpayer would have to spend ,£150,000,- 
000 in paying the Irish landlord. It was a singu- 
lar Nemesis on the landlords of Ireland that their 
tyranny and cruelty had become so well known 
that hatred of them had grown into a passion with 
the British as with the Irish democracy, and for 
the working-classes of the country to be called 
upon to have to pay higher taxes in order that 
these scoundrels might get a heavy price for their 
stolen goods was a project against which the 
workinq-man's stomach revolted ; and in votinq- 
against the Gladstonian candidate, or refusing to 
vote for him, vast numbers of men were impelled 
by the idea that they were striking a blow against 
the hated tyrants of the Irish soil. 

Finally the Tories and the Liberal Unionists 
had made a treaty which was carried out with 
astonishing fidelity in every place in which it was 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 449 

made. Every Liberal who voted against the bill 
was promised by the Tories freedom from all Tory 
opposition. The result of it was that in a vast 
number of constituencies, nearly one hundred 
altogether, the Liberal who opposed Mr. Glad- 
stone had the solid Tory vote, and it will be clear 
that it required but a small percentage of his own 
following among the Liberals to be able to win a 
seat on a contest of such a character. In this 
way a number of Liberals were returned to Par- 
liament by Tory votes, and of course, with this 
vote, were able in most instances "to defy attacks 
made upon their seats by the honest liberalism 
of the constituencies. Nevertheless, this union 
of bitter opponents proved ineffective in some 
remarkable cases, and several of the most prom- 
inent enemies of Ireland were defeated. Mr. 
Goschen was beaten by an immense majority in 
Edinburgh ; Sir George Trevelyan was routed in 
the Border Burghs after holding the seat for 
eighteen years ; Mr. Albert Grey, with all the 
influence of Lord Grey, a large landed proprietor, 
and of the Tories and Whigs, was beaten for the 
Tyneside Division, and Lord Hartington had to 
rely almost wholly on Tory votes in his own con- 
stituency of Hossendale. 

In Ireland, meantime, the Parnellites had been 
winning their way steadily after the usual fashion. 
It had been declared over and over again both in 
the debates in Parliament and during the election 



450 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

campaign that the Parnellite members represented 
but a minority of the Irish population, and that 
their return had been brought about by the intim- 
idation of the loyal portion of the inhabitants. 
Nevertheless, in the majority of seats the loyalists 
in the election of 1886 did not even venture upon 
a contest, the reason of course being that there 
was no chance whatever of winning seats, and 
they were afraid of showing their nakedness to 
the enemy. There was one important victory 
and there were two important defeats. Mr. Sex- 
ton renewed his attack on West Belfast and was 
returned by a startlingly large majority. On the 
other hand, Mr. Healy was beaten for South 
Derry, and Mr. William O'Brien for South Ty- 
rone. Thus the result of these two defeats was 
to reverse the verdict of Ulster at the previous 
election to the extent of giving the Orangemen 
the majority of one which was hitherto held by 
the Nationalists. This majority, however, is not 
yet secure. Mr. Justin McCarthy fought again 
for Derry City ; the majority against him was 
declared to be three, but a petition has since been 
presented making charges of personation and 
unfair rejection of votes, and as all the officials 
were unscrupulous Orangemen it is more than 
probable that the petition will prove successful. 
And thus again the Nationalists would be masters 
of Ulster. Another registration will probably 
mve them two or three more seats, and the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 451 

Orange faction will be reduced to its proper di- 
mensions. When the elections were over it was 
found that the following had been returned : Con- 
servatives, 317; Liberal Unionists, 75; Home 
Rule Liberals, 191 ; Parnellites, 85; Speaker, 1. 
This does not account for the Orkney and Shet- 
land Islands, the result of the elections for which 
were not known until long after the others were 
disposed of. For those islands, however, a Glad- 
stonian was returned. 

It will be well to say a word or two about the 
number of votes that were given. The figures 
were as follows : For the Conservatives, 1,106,651 
votes; Liberal Unionists, 417,456; Gladstonian 
Liberals, 1,347,983; Parnellites, 99,669. Total, 
2 »97 I 759- Conservatives and Liberal Unionists 
combined, 1,524,107. Gladstonian Liberals and 
Parnellites, 1,447,652. It will thus be seen that 
out of a total of nearly three millions of votes 
in the three countries there was a majority for 
Unionists of 76,455. If we turn to Wales we 
find that the vote was : Gladstonian Liberals, 60,- 
083 ; Conservatives, 28,897 > Liberal Unionists, 
10,005. Thus in the principality of Wales there 
was a Ministerial majority of 11,578 of the entire 
population. In Scotland the total poll was: 
Gladstonian Liberals, 191,443; Liberal Unionists, 
113,222 ; Conservatives, 50,800. And thus there 
was a majority for Home Rule in the Scotch 
electorate of 27,421. In England alone was there 



452 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

a majority against Home Rule. The numbers 
were in England: Conservatives, 938,487; Liberal 
Unionists, 264,643 ; total Unionist vote, 1,203,130. 
Gladstonian Liberals, 1,096,45 7 ; Parnellites, 2,91 1. 
Total Ministerial vote, 1,099,368; Unionist ma- 
jority, 103,762. At all events, in England, Wales 
and Scotland alone 1,347,983 people have voted 
for Home Rule. A year before the Home Rulers 
in England were perhaps not more than a few 
thousand. At this election the Home Rulers 
were nearly a million and a half. And this is no 
reason (to -say the least) for discouragement. 
If we look upon the composition of the new House 
we find equally good reason for satisfaction. The 
Liberal Unionists are a hopeless party reduced 
in numbers, incapable of forming an administra- 
tion, and perhaps incapable of holding together, 
and Conservatives can only maintain an adminis- 
tration by the countenance and support of a cer- 
tain section of the Liberal Unionists, and there- 
tore by the continuance of the split between the 
different sections of the Liberal party. 

A prominent and startling series of events 
has taken place of late in Belfast and its vicin- 
ity. There has occurred in that important city 
a succession of terribly bloody riots between the 
Protestant and the Catholic portions of the pop- 
ulace. The overwhelming majority of the re- 
ports confirm the truth of the statement that the 
Protestants in almost if not quite every case have 



THE GREAT IRISH STfcUGGt.fi. 453 

been the aggressive party, and it appears that 
they have surpassed their adversaries in cruelty 
and bitter zeal. The friends of Ireland have not 
forgotten the recent speech of Lord Randolph 
Churchill, in which he appeared to advise his 
loyalist hearers to take just exactly the course 
that these misguided bigots have taken. 

The opinion very generally held by well-in- 
formed Home Rulers, that Ireland has more 
reason to expect favors from the Conservative 
leaders than from a party so divided as is the so- 
called Liberal party of to-day, finds considerable 
support from the present aspect of public affairs 
in Great Britain. Already the air is full of 
rumors of grand and generous movements to be 
executed under Conservative auspices. One 
Conservative project is said to look to the speedy 
concession of Home Rule to England, to Scot- 
land and to Wales, as well as to Ireland the 

united kingdom to be by this process transformed 
into a Federal Union of autonomous states. This 
project is at present a crude one; and the an- 
swer to the question as to whether Ireland would 
be willing to become a member of such a federa- 
tion must depend largely upon the details of the 
scheme. These details, however, are as yet un- 
known to the general public, and it is enough 
to say that even those who may favor this 
plan have not as yet given to it any definite 
shape. 



AMERICA'S PART. 



THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE." 



By ROBERT M. McWADE, Esq. 



WITH INTRODUCTION BY 



PROFESSOR ROBERT E. THOMPSON, D.D., LL.D., 

OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



(455) 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 



I ACCEPTED the invitation of my friend Mr. 
Robert M. McWade to write something by 
way of preface to his able and authentic account 
of the Irish National League in America, not as 
hoping to add anything to its interest, but be- 
cause there were some things which ought to be 
said to American readers of this book, and which I 
may be in a better position to say than he is. As 
an economist, an Irish Protestant, and not a 
member of the League, although I have worked 
with it with voice and pen in behalf of Ireland, 
I can speak as a somewhat disinterested observer 
of its labors and its achievements. And for the 
same reason I can speak freely of some American 
prejudices which stand in the way of the re- 
cognition of Ireland's rights. 

The educational work of the Irish National 
League in America has been more effective in 
moulding public opinion than probably its own 
representatives are aware. By reason of the 
absorption of Americans in questions of home 
rather than foreign politics, and the general 

27 (457) 



458 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

diffusion of English books and newspapers in 
this country, there has been and there still is a 
great amount of both ignorance and prejudice on 
this subject in America. But both are dissipating 
rapidly, and for that thanks to the League mainly. 
The dignity, the sincerity, the mingled sobriety 
and enthusiasm of the annual conventions, and 
the ample self-sacrifices made by the League at 
large in behalf of Ireland, have produced a deep 
and growing impression for good. It is an 
English delusion that Ireland has no American 
friends except among the politicians who want 
Irish votes. My own associations are very slight 
with that class of Americans, and very intimate 
with those whose opinions are formed on better 
grounds ; and I can testify that it is becoming 
rarer with every year to find an American who 
wishes the continuance of British rule in Ireland, or 
who does not believe in " Ireland for the Irish." 

There still are a few who object to this ques- 
tion being brought into prominence in America. 
They say it should be fought out at home, and 
that Irishmen who become American citizens 
should leave their old-world questions behind 
them, as do the Germans or the Norwegians who 
come to America. But the American people 
generally recognize a great difference in the case 
of the Irish. They know that this people have 
been driven by millions from their native land by 
the misrule of an alien government, and are in 
effect exiles as well as ' immigrants. And they 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 459 

know that the Irish people in America have to 
spend millions every year out of their wages and 
earnines to save their kindred at home from 
eviction, and that every few years they have to 
add largely to those millions to save their country- 
men from the famines produced by alien rule. 

With some patriotic Americans there is a 
shrinking from owning the riorht of Ireland to con- 
trol her own affairs, because of a fancied anal- 
ogy between Home Rule and Secession, on 
which Ireland's enemies — Prof. Goldwin Smith and 
others — have insisted very skillfully. There is no 
real analogy between the two things. The Amer- 
ican States which attempted to secede in 1861 
had given their full and free consent to the Union 
of 1789, in the face of the warning that if they 
entered it they could not withdraw without the 
consent of three-fourths of the States. Ireland 
— as Mr. Leckey and Mr. Gladstone both remind 
us — never gave her consent to the Union of 1801. 
"The whole unbought intellect of Ireland re- 
sisted it," Mr. Leckey says. Before i860 — as 
Mr. Alexander Stephens reminded the people of 
Georgia in discussing the proposal to secede — 
the South exercised a controlling influence on 
the policy of the country, and- had not a single 
substantial grievance to plead. Ireland since 
1 801 has been a hopeless and powerless minority, 
governed according to English ideas and in- 
terests rather than her own, and in defiance of 
pledges contained in die Treaty of Union itself. 



460 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

The secession movement was a spurt of excited 
passion, which experience has shown not to have 
destroyed the patriotic attachments of the South- 
ern people. Ireland's hostility to English rule 
has been age-long, unrelenting, ineradicable. 

It is true that the one hundred and five mem- 
bers secured Ireland in the Imperial Parliament 
have made a kind of representation of the coun- 
try. But what avails this number against four 
times as many English and Scotch members who 
know and care nothing about the needs and 
prejudices, the political and social ideas of the 
Irish people, and who are alien to them in blood, 
religion and historical traditions ? Take but one 
instance of the workings of the arrangement. 
The Irish people, like Catholic peoples generally, 
think the relief of the poor is a matter for indi- 
vidual charity and church oversight. Yet England 
forced her poor-law upon Ireland, levying a rate 
for the public relief of the destitute, and build- 
ing workhouses, on whose inmates alone this 
relief is bestowed. And she enacted it for Ire- 
land with a severity unknown even in- Great 
Britain. She forbade out-door relief even in times 
of the most general distress, requiring every 
recipient to become an inmate of the workhouse. 
As hardly anything could be more disgraceful in 
the eyes of the Celtic peasant, there have been 
many cases in which the people lay down and 
died of hunger sooner than enter " the house." 
And this is why the Irish in every year of famine 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 4(j1 

turn to appeal to the charities of the world at 
large, rather than ask help of the government of 
their country. 

With some Americans the objection derived 
from religious differences has weight. They 
have so little regard for their Protestantism that 
they are willing to saddle it with a great national 
injustice, rather than see Ireland controlled by a 
Roman Catholic majority. Let me ask their at- 
tention to two points : The first is, that Ireland 
is the one country of Europe which has no re- 
ligious establishment, and that it is ooinor to have 
none. The national party avow their readiness 
to accept Home Rule on a footing which forbids 
government favors to any church or sect. The 
second is, that the only religious question left to 
fight over is the education question, and that on 
that the majority of the Protestants — and espe- 
cially the Orange party among the Protestants — 
are in complete agreement with the hierarchy of 
the Roman Catholic Church. They both wish 
the abolition of the national schools, in which 
religious instruction is both vague and scanty. 
They both wish to substitute for it denominational 
schools, to be aided by the government in pro- 
portion to the work each school is doing. It is 
only the Presbyterians and some Roman Catholics 
who will offer any resistance to their proposal ; and 
their combined forces will not suffice to make the 
resistance either prolonged or vigorous. 

But, even were it otherwise, there would be no 



462 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

danger in leaving the Irish people to settle the 
religious problem among themselves. To sup- 
pose that the temper of the Roman Catholic 
majority is intolerant is to ignore the plainest 
facts, and to transfer the ideas of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries into the nineteenth. 
Has the Protestant minority of Belgium suffered 
from the overthrow of the alien Protestant gov- 
ernment, whose existence made that creed offen- 
sive before 1830 to the great majority of the 
Belgian people ? As a matter of fact, the Prot- 
estants of Belgium have not a single substantial 
grievance. The Roman Catholics of Belgium, 
instead of sinking all other questions and uniting 
for their extermination, have divided upon other 
questions, and each party seeks the Protestant 
vote. And so it would be in Ireland. On every 
question, notably on that of education, the Roman 
Catholics would be found to differ among them- 
selves, and the old line of cleavage between 
Orange and Green would disappear in the new 
line between Liberal and Conservative. Mr. 
Parnell probably would be found leading the 
Liberal " centre," with Mr. Davitt on the Radical 
"left ; " and a Conservative party, Roman Catholic 
even more than Protestant, would form the 
"right" in a National Irish Parliament. 

Nor is it any compliment to the Protestants of 
Ireland to suppose that they are not equal to the 
task of taking care of themselves, and of making 
their alliance courted. The element which gave 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 4tf;3 

to Great Britain such men as Burke, Canning-, 
Castlereagh, Croker, Wellington, Paltnerston and 
Cairnes may be presumed to have some polk* 
ical capacity. It has inherited political experience 
and wealth in excess of its numerical ratio. It 
has had the best opportunities for general and 
higher education. It has given Ireland leaders 
— from Swift and Grattan to Davis and Parnell — 
whose names are a national possession. It has 
contributed its full share of the martyrs for the 
cause of Irish liberty. And when the soreness 
attending the readjustments of our generation are 
over, when the agrarian and the political problems 
are settled, the people of Ireland will say — as Mr. 
Parnell has said already of the Protestant minor- 
ity — "We want them all; we do not mean to do 
without a man of them." 

A few Americans still cherish the delusion that 
the character of the Irish people is naturally law- 
less and disorderly, and that this constitutes one 
of the difficulties of maintaining good government 
there. On the contrary there is no country in 
the world in which crimes against life, person, 
chastity and property are so rare. This is ad- 
mitted even by those English statists, who are 
unfriendly to the national aspirations of the Irish 
people. It has been shown by a comparison of 
Ireland with our New England States — the most 
orderly part of our national Union — by the Rev. 
Charles F. Thwing. The contrary impression has 
been created by collecting carefully every r - 



464 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

port of crime and outrage committed in Ireland, 
and sending it by telegraph to England and to the 
United States. These despatches are compiled 
in the office of The Irish Times, a Dublin paper, 
which has nothing Irish about it except its title. 

Mr. John Murdock, of Inverness, a hearty friend 
of the Irish people, attended the sessions of the 
Peace Society in this city when he was visiting 
America. He found it about to adopt resolutions 
deploring " the prevalence of outrage and blood- 
shed in Ireland," and calling upon the Irish party 
and Mr. Parnell to put a stop to this. Mr. Mur- 
dock asked the Society to look at the official statis- 
tics of Irish crime as compared with those of Penn- 
sylvania, and showed it that Ireland had about a 
score of murders to commit before New Year's 
day — it was then November — if she was to catch 
up to the Pennsylvania average. The society 
withdrew its resolutions and adopted instead of 
them an address calling the attention of Queen 
Victoria to the recent stabbing and shooting of 
women by soldiers and police on the streets of 
Irish towns. 

There are very few Americans so ill-informed 
as to repeat the stock argument that "Ireland is 
wretched because it is over-populated, and no 
English government can find a remedy for that." 
Ireland, like India, produces far more food than 
her people can consume. Like India, she suffers 
from the periodical famines which fall upon coun- 
tries which are producing nothing but food, and 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 465 

which have nothing to fall back on when the har- 
vest fails. By the export of food Ireland pays not 
only the rents of her army of absentee-landlords, but 
buys nearly every article of manufacture that is 
used by either rich or poor in the island. Accord- 
ing- to the testimony collected from experts by 
Sir Eardley Wilmot's Committee of the House of 
Commons in 1885. almost every hat and cap, 
boot and shoe, chair and table, knife and fork, 
shovel and spade used in Ireland comes to her 
from other countries. The people are clad for 
the most part in the products of the cotton and 
shoddy-mills of Northern England, although 
plenty of good wool is produced in Ireland and 
the country has abundant supplies of both coal 
and water-power. No iron is smelted in Ireland, 
although her great peat-beds could be used for 
that purpose, and Antrim produces iron ore which 
is exported to America. And what manufactures 
still remain are decaying visibly. Ulster is losing 
her manufacture of linen, and is exporting linen 
yarn to be worked into fabrics by the German 
weavers, whose government has given them the 
technical training that enables them to outdo their 
Irish competitors. Every census shows a decrease 
in the number of the Irish people who are living 
by anything else than farming. 

It has been among the especial services the 
Irish National League of America has rendered 
to Ireland, that from the first it has insisted 
that the restoration of Irish manufactures — de- 



466 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

stroyed by the infamous Union of 1801 — is a 
question of equal importance with the readjust- 
ment of land-ownership. To this Mr. Parnell re- 
sponded in his Cork speech in the spring of 1886, 
in which he recognized that even a peasant pro- 
prietary would not make Ireland prosperous in 
the absence of other occupations than farming. 
Indeed it is the want of such occupations which 
has vested the Irish landlords with that excess of 
power over their tenants, which so many of them 
have abused shamefully. It is the want of such 
occupations which in the past made farming in 
Ireland a losing business to freeholders as well as 
tenants, and which ruined that great army of land- 
lords, who were swept away by the Encumbered 
Estates Court in 1 847-1 857. And the fact that 
whatever an English Parliament may do to amend 
the land system, it will do nothing to meet this 
want, is one of the many circumstances that make 
Home Rule for Ireland indispensable. 

In the plan of Home Rule proposed by Mr. 
Gladstone and accepted in substance by Mr. Par- 
nell, the new Irish Parliament would be debarred 
from dealing with this problem in the usual way, 
— that to which Americans are accustomed. 
That Parliament could lay no duty on imports or 
exports, nor could it collect any but direct taxes. 
But there are many roads to the same goal ; and 
Dr. Sullivan, the able and patriotic President of 
Queen's College, Cork, seems to have anticipated 



AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 4^7 

this difficulty in his testimony before Sir Eardley 
Wilmot's Committee by pointing out others for 
the revival of the manufactures of the country. 
It is notable that he does not suggest afresh trial 
of the plan of voluntary agreement to use the 
products of Irish manufacture only. That has 
been tried repeatedly in the last fifty years, and it 
always has proved a failure. Voluntary agree- 
ments do not furnish the degree of security on 
which a capitalist will risk his money. And their 
purpose is very easily defeated by the fraud which 
labels English goods with Irish trade-marks. 
This is a case in which the judgment of the peo- 
ple as to their own interest can be enforced only 
through their collective action, using their govern- 
ment as an organ. And as the alien government 
of England will not serve as the organ of the 
popular will in this matter, the establishment of a 
national government for Ireland must be the first 
step towards the establishment of Irish prosperity. 
What effect the restoration of Irish prosperity 
will have on the relations of the nation to the 
British Empire is a question which must be left 
to the future. Ireland's dependence has been se- 
cured by her poverty and her internal dissensions, 
more than by the power of her oppressor. And 
Ireland united and prosperous will be able to 
choose for herself. Those who think her discon- 
tent has had its root in her misery merely, will 
expect to see her settle down into a comfortable 



468 AMERICAN INTRODUCTION. 

and untroublesome member of the United King- 
dom. Those who believe that its deepest root is 
Irish nationality — the collective will to be one 
people in distinction from all other people — must 
look for a different result. Time will test these 
two estimates and this saves us the trouble of 
prophesying. Of one thing I am sure, that in 
the not distant future the choice between the two 
destinies will lie absolutely in the hands of the 
Irish people. Not only the civil and criminal law 
of the island will have that "Irish source," which 
Mr. Gladstone says it must have if the people are 
to give it a hearty acquiescence ; but the consti- 
tutional law which defines the relations of the 
country to England and the rest of the world 
will have an " Irish source " also, and will be of 
such a character as the Irish people may elect to 
give it. It is remarkable that so keen a logician 
as Mr. Gladstone should not have seen this in- 
ference from his own premise as to the proper 
source of law. If he should be spared long 
enough to complete his education in the matter 
of justice to Ireland, he may be convinced that 
something very different from his Home Rule Bill 
is what his own reasoning would suggest for that 
misgoverned and unhappy country. 

ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON. 

University of Pennsylvania, 
January, 1887. 




ROBERT M. McWADE 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE MOVEMENT IN AMERICA. 

TOWARDS the close of the year 1879, when 
Ireland was in the midst of the dark events 
which clustered so thickly around that memorable 
period in her history, the Irish leader, Charles 
Stewart Parnell, determined to appeal on behalf 
of his suffering country, not merely to the Irish 
at home, but to the Irish abroad, especially to 
those exiles and their descendants who had set- 
tled in America. He placed himself in communi- 
cation with leading- Irish-American citizens, and 
after a lengthy correspondence finally determined, 
in 1880, to visit this country. The establishment 
of the Irish National League of the United States 
was one of the chief and most important results 
of that visit. Immediately after his arrival, ac- 
companied by John Dillon, he delivered addresses 
in many of the large cities of the Union, and, 
wherever they went, his cool argumentative and 
dispassionate discourses gained hosts of influ- 
ential American friends, who contributed freely 
and liberally to the Irish cause. Notable among 
the first contributions he received at this time, 

471 



472 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and which he forwarded at once to Treasurer 
Egan in Ireland, was a gift of $1,000 from Mr. 
George W. Childs, of Philadelphia, who, with his 
friend, Mr. A. J. Drexel, the head of the widely 
known banking firm of Drexel & Co., has since 
then made generous donations to the Irish 
National League and Irish Parliamentary Funds. 

Before leaving New York for his home in Ire- 
land Mr. Parnell held a conference with several 
prominent men from various parts of the Union. 
The result of their deliberations was a conference, 
lasting two days, which was held in Trenor Hall, 
New York, on May 18th and 19th, 1880, at which 
the Hon. Patrick A. Collins, of Boston, presided. 
Appropriate resolutions were there drawn up and 
agreed to, a provisional constitution adopted and 
the following elected as national officers : J. J. 
McCafferty, President; Rev. Lawrence Walsh, 
Treasurer ; Michael Davitt, Secretary. 

Almost immediately after the meeting the presi- 
dent resigned, and the patriot, Michael Davitt, 
went home to Ireland to face threatened impris- 
onment. The conduct of the entire executive 
business of the Land League was thus thrown 
upon Father Walsh. 

Feeling the necessity for prompt and energetic 
work, that patriot priest used every exertion to 
further the success of the movement. Branches 
were formed in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, 
Chicago, and other great cities and centres of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 473 

population, and contributions to the League funds 
were transmitted to Ireland through the Irish 
World, Boston Pilot, and other journals, as well 
as through the regular treasurer. 

Father Walsh found, after laboring incessantly 
and unwearyingly for several months, that more 
concerted action and a more effective organization 
were absolutely necessary. Hence, he issued a 
call to the delegates of the various branches to 
meet in convention at Buffalo, N. Y., on the 12th 
and 13th of January, 1881. 

This was really the first Land League Con- 
vention held in the United States of America. 
Though in point of numbers its roll-call of dele- 
gates was not very large, yet it is safe to say that 
there never before assembled in this country a 
more intelligent, patriotic or representative body 
of men to take counsel together on the welfare 
of Ireland. A series of resolutions expressive of 
the objects of, as well as the necessity for. the- ex- 
istence of the Land League was adopted, the 
bonds of unity and fraternity among the friends 
of Ireland throughout this country were cemented 
and strengthened, a Central Council was chosen, 
and the following national officers were elected : 
Hon. Patrick A. Collins, Boston, Mass., Presi- 
dent; Rev. Lawrence Walsh, Waterbury, Conn., 
Treasurer; Thomas Flatley, Esq., Boston, Mass., 
Secretary. 

Those three officers at once instituted a com- 
28 



474 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

plete system of organized activity and effective 
energy, and raised the Land League in America 
into a powerful organization, containing nearly 
one thousand branches and contributing - in one 
year about three hundred thousand dollars to 
Treasurer Eg-an, then in Ireland. In the light of 
subsequent events, the following address, issued 
on February 7, 1881, by President Collins to 
the members of the League and the American 
public, possesses considerable interest, aside from 
its historical value, as being the first declaration 
made by the first National President of the 
League : 

" Irish National Land League of the United 
States. Central Office, 198 Washington 
Street, Boston, Mass., February 7, 1881. 

" To the Members of the League and the American 
Public : It is but a few months since the people 
of Ireland ended a struggle for existence on the 
soil of their fathers. They fought Death itself, 
in the gaunt form of famine, and by the great 
charity of mankind were enabled to conquer it. 
To the wail of Irish distress America responded 
with noble generosity. 

" But had not the Land League i n Ireland ex- 
isted, with its forecast and warning of the famine, 
its timely appeal, wise Organization, and machinery 
for distribution, in the judgment of the best in- 
formed, death by starvation would have been the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 477 

fate of vast numbers of the people. The scenes 
of 1846-7-8 were averted by prescience and 
organization. 

" The Land League in Ireland continues its ex- 
istence for the purpose of removing the cause of 
famine — landlord robbery of the people ; for the 
purpose of compelling- such changes in the law 
as will make every Irish peasant the owner of the 
soil he cultivates. 

"In their movements to attain this grand re- 
sult — a result attained by the people of almost 
every other country in Europe — the Irish have the 
sympathy of every free people on the planet. 

" But they need more. The Ireland we speak 
of has been richly dowered by nature, but cruelly 
robbed by man. By fire, sword, law and famine 
the island has been swept and scourged for seven 
centuries in an effort for the conquest of the land 
and the extermination of the people. Manu- 
factures have been depressed, commerce has been 
swept from the ocean ; agriculture is the chief 
industry of the people. 

"The area of Ireland is 20,327,764 acres; 
4,643,986 acres are in bog, waste and water. 
From the 15,683,778 acres of arable land and 
some 5,000,000 people living on it, the landlords 
claim the right to wring $90,000,000 a year in 
rents — half of which to spend abroad — and the. 
Government $60,000,000 more in local and impe- 
rial taxes ! 



478 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" In so-called ' good years ' Ireland staggers 
under this enormous burden ; in ' bad years ' she 
starves or begs. 

" Says the London Times: ' Property is there 
ruled with savage and tyrannical sway. Land- 
lords exercise their rights with a hand of iron, 
and disregard their duties with a forehead of 
brass.' 

"Feudal law, with a mountain of abuses piled 
upon it, is mercilessly administered by a landlord 
class whose titles rest upon confiscation, and who 
are sustained in their excesses and exactions by 
the whole power of the Government. 

" Nearly 80 per cent, of the cultivators are ten- 
ants at the landlords' will. But 3 per cent, are 
owners in fee. 

" Rent is based, not upon the humane, economic 
principle that the soil is first to repay the tiller 
for his toil and outlay, but upon a calculation of 
what can be squeezed out of the ragged, wretched 
tenant, and out of his friends abroad. 

" Not less than $3,000,000 annually, during the 
past thirty years, have been forwarded to the 
peasantry of Ireland by their friends and kindred 
in other lands ! Not less than two-thirds of this 
goes from the United States. Hence this becomes 
an American economic question. 

"With such a merciless system in vogue, what 
wonder is it that the people are described as ' the 
worst housed, the worst fed and the worst clad of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 479 

any in the world ? ' Two hundred and twenty- 
five thousand families live in cabins of one room 
each. In ' good years ' they exist. In ' bad years ' 
they starve, unless succored by foreign charity. 

" Nine-tenths of the landlord titles to the soil 
of Ireland rest upon confiscation. Morally, 
against the rights of the true owners, no statute 
of limitations runs. Legally, what the Crown or 
Parliament gave it can take away. 

" If the Irish people had the power to rid them- 
selves at once of Crown and landlords, they would 
use it, and the moral sense of mankind would 
justify and applaud it. 

" But in the Land League programme there is 
no suggestion of resort to armed force. Irish 
discontent and agitation are to run their course 
within the limits of the British law and Constitu- 
tion. 

" To lift the people of the island up from mis- 
ery, to educate them into a full realization of their 
condition, rights and power, to organize them in 
solid mass against the authors of their wrongs, to 
force by lawful means such changes in the land 
laws as will make the people the owners of the 
soil they till — this is the mission of the Land 
League in Ireland. 

" The effort has already borne fruit. Rents 
have been reduced, evictions have diminished, the 
people have ' stuck to their holdings.' The ques- 
tion is on the fair road to settlement. 



480 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" England yields only to force. During the 
past year the force of the Irish people has been 
wisely, ingeniously, admirably exerted. Hence, 
the concession in the Queen's speech of Home 
Rule and the rights of the tenant in the land. 
The logical extension of these principles lifts 
Ireland up to a plane of prosperity. 

" In dealing with Irish grievance, however, 
England deals a blow before she applies the rem- 
edy. Coercion precedes concession. 

" Ireland is about to be subjected to a tension 
unwonted even for her. It will require the exer- 
cise of all the leaders' skill and the marvellous 
patience of the people to avert an explosion. 

"That they will succeed, their conduct during 
the past year is an earnest and a guaranty. 

" In this crisis, and in their supreme effort to 
rid themselves of the incubus of landlordism, the 
people of Ireland need the aid of their friends in 
other lands. 

"Against them are the prejudices of ages, the 
power of a dominant and arrogant class, the very 
wealth wrung from their toil and misery — the 
Crown, the aristocracy, a subsidized press. On 
their side are justice, numbers, patriotism and the 
light of the nineteenth century. 

" The Land League in the United States is an 
organization auxiliary to that in Ireland. It has 
no part in shaping the policy of the Irish body. 
Its functions are to make the case of Ireland fully 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 481 

understood in America, so that the public opinion 
of this republic shall be intelligently and forcibly 
expressed on the side of justice and liberty in 
Ireland; and to aid, by our sympathy and means, 
the splendid march of the Irish people on to jus- 
tice, prosperity and self-government. 

" In this work we ask the co-operation of all 
just men of whatever color, race, creed or condi- 
tion. Combine everywhere in branches of the 
League. Report to us, so that in the mass we 
shall be united. Let us have before St. Patrick's 
Day such an organization in existence as the Irish 
race has never seen — an organization that can 
create Ireland's opportunity, and be ready to take 
advantage of England's difficulty. 

" P. A. Collins, President." 

Hon. Patrick A. Collins, the writer of that 
admirable document, in addition to being the first 
president of the national organization, has the 
proud honor of being the first president of the 
first branch of the Land League that was formed 
in America. At its organization in Faneuil Hall, 
Boston, in the presence of the Hon. John Dillon, 
M. P., whose fervid eloquence aroused the crowded 
meeting to the highest pitch of enthusiasm, was 
sown the seed which fructified a few months 
later in the establishment of many others, and 
aided largely in the formation of the Central 
Council. 



482 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Mr. Collins was born near Fermoy, in the 
County Cork, Ireland, on March 12, 1844. Four 
years later we find him in this country in Chelsea, 
Mass., where he attended the public schools until 
he was twelve years of age. For three years sub- 
sequently he worked on a farm, in the coal mines, 
and in a grindstone mill in Ohio. In his sixteenth 
year he came to Boston, where he learned the 
upholstering trade, at which he worked for seven 
years in the successive positions of apprentice, 
journeyman and foreman, holding the last position 
when he was only nineteen years old. For four 
years he read law in a Boston office, and with the 
money he had saved was able to finish his studies 
at the Harvard Law School. He was admitted to 
the bar in April, 1871, and has practised in Boston 
since that date. 

Loving his native land, with whose history and 
traditions his mind was stored, with the passionate 
fervor of the Irish-American he threw himself at 
an early age into the Irish movement in this coun- 
try and devoted his best energies to organize and 
build up a society or association of clubs that 
would aid in Ireland's emancipation. He became 
an active member of the Fenian Brotherhood, and 
was on its rolls from 1862 until 1870. He served 
as Secretary of the Philadelphia Convention and 
as Chairman of a subsequent one, and for upwards 
of nine months in 1865 was recognized every- 
where as one of the most able and energetic 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 433 

organizers in that powerful confederation of clubs 
or circles. The trusted friend and confidant of 
the lamented Fenian chieftain, John O'Mahony, lie 
gained and has always retained the esteem and 
confidence of the Irish Nationalists in this country 
as well as " at home." 

From his earliest years he took a deep interest 
in the affairs of his adopted country, and connect- 
ing himself with the Democratic party, he became 
one of its most ardent supporters. In 1868 and 
1869 he was a member of the Massachusetts 
House of Representatives and of the Massachu- 
setts State Senate in 1870 and 1871. He was 
delegate- at-large to the Democratic National 
Conventions of 1876 and 1880, and declined that 
honor in 1884. His remarkable executive abili- 
ties were admirably displayed in 1873 and 1874 
during his Chairmanship of the Boston Demo- 
cratic City Committee, and in 1884, 1885, and 
1886, whilst he was Chairman of the Democratic 
State Committee of Massachusetts. After serv- 
ing two terms in Congress as a representative of 
the Fourth Massachusetts district, he retired early 
in 1886, publicly declining further political honors. 
In the same year he was re-elected to Congress. 

Of all the able officers of the national organi- 
zation few are better known than Thomas Flat- 
ley, Esq., the genial secretary, whose untiring 
industry and earnest patriotic labors enabled Pres- 
ident Collins to perfect his plans of forming the 



484 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

various branches of the Land League into one 
grand cohesive organization. A tinge of romance 
colors his early life " in the old land." About 
thirty-five years ago he was born in Claremorris, 
a pretty little town in the west of Ireland. Grad- 
uating from a private classical school, he matricu- 
lated in the Queen's College, Gal way. While 
here he heard echoes of the agitation that pre- 
ceded the intended insurrection and left his alma 
mater to take part in " the rising." 

Being very popular in his native place he soon 
raised a battalion of gallant young patriots, re- 
ceived a commission, and mapped out an active 
plan of campaign in that section, of the country. 
Tom's troops were well drilled, but badly provided 
with such " fighting materials " as arms and ac- 
coutrements ; so he promptly devised a plan to 
supply the deficiency. About twenty or thirty of 
" the boys " were to " get up a sham fight " in the 
square of the town, and while the entire police 
force would be engaged in trying to quell the dis- 
turbance and making arrests the remainder of the 
battalion were to capture the police arsenal. As 
soon as this was accomplished, with Tom at their 
head, they were in turn to attack the police, and 
after taking them prisoners to offer them the 
alternative of being court-martialled or donning 
the green cockade and swearing allegiance to the 
Irish Republic. 

Fortunately for Ireland, on the eve of the ap- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 485 

pointed day, March 5, 1867, the order for "the 
rising" was countermanded. A slight skirmish, 
however, took place near Dublin. The other 
outbreak, a military speck on the horizon, was in 
Kerry, where brave Captain O'Connor, on learn- 
ing the true state of affairs, disbanded his men in 
the mountains. The English commander sent 
flying columns through the provinces with instruc- 
tions to take the " centres " and suspects pris- 
oners. Most of them, warned of the fate that was 
intended for them, fled from Ireland to this coun- 
try, and our friend, ex-Secretary Flatley, was one 
of their number. 

Immediately after his arrival he engaged in 
mercantile pursuits, but feeling that he needed a 
more thorough equipment for the battle of life, 
he entered Georgetown College in 1868. In 
course of time he received his decree f Bachelor 
of Arts and a diploma after passing a most suc- 
cessful examination in the law department. He 
subsequently became a member of the college 
faculty, and though something of a martinet in 
discipline, he never lost the suave temper, riant 
humor, and irrepressible buoyancy that marked 
his earlier days. Shortly after his admission to 
the bar he associated in practice with his brother, 
P. J. Flatley, Esq. In politics he is a pronounced 
Democrat. Almost twelve months ago he was 
appointed Deputy Collector of the Port of Boston, 
a position which he still holds, 



486 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The work of stirring up the people to do their 
whole duty by the home leaders of the move- 
ment, received a fresh impetus in October, 1881, 
when the cable flashed the news across the 
Atlantic Ocean of the determination of William 
Ewart Gladstone's government to put down the 
Irish National League by force. The first step 
in that direction was sufficient of itself to set 
aflame the hearts of Irishmen all over the civil- 
ized world. Mr. Parnell, the President of the 
League, was arrested on the 13th of that month, 
and within two days afterwards Thomas Sexton, 
John Dillon, J. J. O'Kelly, William O'Brien, and 
others were imprisoned as " suspects." The 
Executive of the League now felt the necessity to 
take some strong steps to thwart the Irish land- 
lords, and to show the British Government by 
absolute proofs that the Irish people would not 
tamely submit to this unjustifiable incarceration of 
their representatives. As a last resource the 
Irish Executive called on the tenants to " pay no 
rent." They did so in the following document, 
which, as will be seen by its date, was issued on 
the 1 8th of October, 1881. Many enemies of 
the Home Rule movement, in America and else- 
where, in their attempts to justify the arrest of 
Mr. Parnell, assert that " he was imprisoned 
because he issued the No-Rent Manifesto." The 
exact converse is the truth. The manifesto was 
issued because the leaders of the national organi- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 487 

zation were deprived of their liberty. • As a his- 
toric interest is attached to the document, and, as 
its alleged contents have been the cause of, at 
times, bitter contention, I append it, verbatim, as 
it was issued from the patriots' prison : 

" To the Irish People. 

" Fellow Countrymen : The hour has come to 
test whether the great organization, built up 
during years of patient labor and sacrifice, and 
consecrated by the allegiance of the whole Irish 
race the world over, is to disappear at the sum- 
mons of a brutal tyranny. The crisis with which 
we are face to face is not of our making. It has 
been deliberately forced upon the country, while 
the Land Act is, as yet, untested, in order to strike 
down the only power which might have extorted 
any solid benefits for the tenant-farmers of Ireland 
from that Act, and to leave them once more help- 
lessly at the mercy of a law invented to save 
landlordism and administered by landlord minions. 

"The Executive of the Irish National Land 
League, acting in the spirit of the resolutions of 
the National Convention— the most freely elected 
body ever assembled in Ireland — was advancing 
steadily in the work of testing how far the admin- 
istration of the Land Act might be trusted to 
eradicate from the rents of the Irish tenant- 
farmers the entire value of their own improve- 
ments, and to reduce these rents to such a figure 



488 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

as should forever place our country beyond the 
peril of periodical famine. At the same time they 
took measures to secure, in the event of the Land 
Act proving to be a mere paltry mitigation of the 
horrors of landlordism in order to fasten it the 
more securely on" the necks of the people, that 
the tenant-farmers should not be delivered blind- 
folded into the hands of hostile law courts, but 
should be able to fall back upon the magnificent 
organization which was crushing landlordism out 
of existence when Mr. Gladstone stepped in to 
its rescue. In either event the Irish tenant-far- 
mers would have been in a position to exact 
the uttermost farthing of their just demand. 

" It was this attitude of perfect self-command — 
impregnable while there remained a shadow of 
respect for law, and supported with unparalleled 
enthusiasm by the whole Irish race — that moved 
the rage of the disappointed English Minister. 
Upon the monstrous pretext that the National 
Land League was forcing upon the Irish tenant- 
farmers an organization which made them all- 
powerful, and was keeping them, by intimidation, 
from embracing an Act which offered them noth- 
ing except helplessness and uncertainty, the 
English Government has cast to the winds every 
shred of law and justice, and has plunged into an 
open reign of terror, in order to destroy by the 
foulest means an organization which was confess- 
edly too strong for it within the limits of its own 
English constitution. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. },s«) 

" Blow after blow has been struck at the Land 
League, in the mere wantonness of brute force. 
In the face of provocation which has turned men's 
blood to flame, the Executive of the Land League 
adhered calmly and steadily to the course traced 
out for them by the National Convention. Test 
cases of a varied and searching character were, 
with great labor, put in train for adjudication in 
the Land Courts. Even the arrest of our Presi- 
dent, Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, and the excited 
state of popular feeling which it evoked, did not 
induce the executive to swerve in the slightest 
from that course; for Mr. Parnell's arrest might 
have been accounted for by motives of personal 
malice, and his removal did not altogether derange 
the machinery for the preparation of the test 
cases which he has been at much pains to per- 
fect. But the events which have since occurred — 
the seizure, or attempted seizure, of almost all the 
members of the executive and of the chief officials 
of the League, upon wild and preposterous pre- 
tences, and the violent suppression of free speech 
— put it beyond any possibility of doubt that the 
English Government — unable to declare the Land 
League an illegal association, defeated in the 
attempt to break its unity, and afraid to abide the 
result of test cases, watched over by a powerful 
popular organization — has deliberately resolved 
to destroy the whole machinery of the Central 
League, with a view to rendering an experi- 



490 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

mental trial of the Act impossible, and forcing it 
upon the Irish tenant-farmers on the Government's 
own terms. 

"The brutal and arbitrary dispersion of the 
Central Executive has so far succeeded that we 
are obliged to announce to our countrymen that 
we no longer possess the machinery for ade- 
quately presenting the test cases in court accord- 
ing to the policy prescribed by the National Con- 
vention. , Mr. Gladstone has, by a series of 
furious and wanton acts of despotism, driven the 
Irish farmers to choose between their own organ- 
ization and the mercy of his lawyers — between 
the power which has reduced landlordism to 
almost its last gasp and the power which strives 
with all the ferocity of despotism to restore the 
detestable ascendency from which the Land 
League has delivered the Irish people. 

"One constitutional weapon alone now remains 
in the hands of the Irish National League. It is 
the strongest, the swiftest, the most irresistible of 
all. We hesitated to advise our fellow-country- 
men to employ it until the savage lawlessness of 
the English Government provoked a crisis in 
which we must either consent to see the Irish 
tenant-farmers disarmed of their organization and 
laid once more prostrate at the feet of the land- 
lords, and every murmur of Irish public opinion 
suppressed with an armed hand, or appeal to our 
countrymen to at once resort to the only means 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 491 

now left in their hands of bringing- this false and 
brutal Government to its senses. 

" Fellow-countrymen, the hour to try your souls 
and redeem your pledges has arrived. The 
Executive of the National Land League, forced 
to abandon the policy of testing the Land Act, 
feels bound to advise the tenant-farmers of Ire- 
land from this forth to pay no rent under any cir- 
cumstances to their landlords until the Govern- 
ment relinquishes the existing system of terrorism 
and restores the constitutional rights of the peo- 
ple. Do not be daunted by the removal of your 
leaders. Your fathers abolished tithes by the 
same method without any leaders at all, and with 
scarcely a shadow of the magnificent organization 
that covers every portion of Ireland to-day. 

" Do not suffer yourselves to be intimidated by 
threats of military violence. It is as lawful to 
refuse to pay rents as it is to receive them. 
Against the passive resistance of an entire popu- 
lation, military power has no weapons. Do not 
be wheedled into compromise of any sort by the 
dread of eviction. If you only act together in the 
spirit to which in the last two years you have 
countless times solemnly pledged your vows, they 
can no more evict a whole nation than they can 
imprison them. The funds of the National Land 
League will be poured out unstintedly for the 
support of all who may endure eviction in the 
course of the struggle. Our exiled brothers in 



492 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

America may be relied upon to contribute, if 
necessary, as many millions of money as they have 
contributed thousands, to starve out landlordism 
and bring- English tyranny to its knees. You 
have only to show that you are not unworthy of 
their boundless sacrifices in your cause. No 
power on earth except faint-heartedness on our 
own part can defeat you. Landlordism is already 
staggering under the blows which you have dealt 
it, amidst the applause of the world. 

"One more crowning struggle for your land, 
your homes, your lives — a struggle in which you 
have all the memories of your race, all the hopes 
of your children, all the sacrifices of your impris- 
oned brothers, all your cravings for rent-enfran- 
chised land, for happy homes and national freedom, 
to inspire you — one more heroic effort to destroy 
landlordism at the very source and fountain of its 
existence — and the system which was, and is, the 
curse of your race and of your existence, will 
have disappeared for ever. The world is watch- 
ing to -see whether all your splendid hopes and 
noble courage will crumble away at the first threat 
of a cowardly tyranny. You have to choose 
between throwing yourself upon the mercy of 
England and taking your stand by the organiza- 
tion which has once before proved too strong for 
English despotism ; you have to choose between 
all-powerful unity and impotent disorganization ; 
between the land for the landlords and the land 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 493 

for the people ! We cannot doubt your choice. 
Every tenant-farmer of Ireland is to-day the 
standard-bearer of the i\a.Q- unfurled at Irishtown, 
and can bear it to a glorious victory. 

" Stand together in the face of the brutal and 
cowardly enemies of your race ; pay no rents 
under any pretext ; stand passively, firmly, fear- 
lessly by while the armies of England may be en- 
gaged in their hopeless struggle against a spirit 
which their weapons cannot touch ; act for your- 
selves if you are deprived of the counsels of those 
who have shown you how to act ; no power of 
legalized violence can extort one penny from 
your purses against your will ; if you are evicted, 
you will not suffer ; the landlord who evicts you 
will be a ruined pauper, and the Government 
which supports him with its bayonets will learn in 
a single winter how powerless is armed force 
against the will of a united, determined and ^elf- 
reliant nation. 

" Signed : Charles S. Parnell, President, Kil- 
mainham Jail; A. J. Kettle, Honorary Secretary, 
Kilmainham Jail; Michael Davitt, Honorary 
Secretary, Portland . Prison; Thomas Brennan, 
Honorary Secretary, Kilmainham Jail; John Dil- 
lon, Head Organizer, Kilmainham Jail ; Patrick 
Egan, Treasurer, Paris. 

"18M October, 1881." 

The manly and determined spirit with which 



494 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the Irish nation took hold of their leaders' advice 
and followed it up in almost every section of " the 
old land," aroused the enthusiasm of their fellow- 
countrymen in America. Meetings were held in 
almost every city and town in the United States, 
and preparations were made to raise whatever 
funds might be thought necessary to aid " the 
men in the gap." Every one recognized the fact 
that a crisis had now arisen in Irish affairs which 
demanded liberal, square-toed action on their part, 
if the tenant-farmers were to be supported in the 
stand they had taken. The attempt of the Glad- 
stone Government to wipe out the Irish National 
Land League must be resented, at the same 
time, in language the import of which must be 
unmistakable. 

Patrick Ford, P. A. Collins and John Boyle 
O'Reilly, on behalf of the American Irish, and T. 
P. O'Connor, T. M. Healy and Rev. Eugene 
Sheehy, representatives from Ireland, united in a 
public appeal to the branches of the Irish National 
League, and to all organizations in America 
friendly to the Irish cause to send delegates to an 
Irish National Convention to be held in McCor- 
mack's Hall, in the city of Chicago, Illinois, on the 
30th of November and the 1st and 2d of Decem- 
ber, 1 88 1. The appeal urged the branches and 
societies to " select as delegates the wisest and 
ablest in your respective communities, so that the 
convention may be thoroughly representative." 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 495 

President Collins and the other national officers 
at the same time issued an official call for the con- 
vention. Among other things it said : 

"This is a summons to the entire race and all 
its friends in America ; and in that spirit it js 
hoped and expected it will be answered. Ireland 
is darkened with troops, her people are disarmed, 
her chosen leaders are in prison, her voice is 
stifled. 

" These worse than Asian methods of repression 
have been tried before and have failed. They 
will fail now also, but it depends upon us to make 
the failure so complete that the methods will 
never again be applied. 

" In all her ages of trial Ireland has never 
shown among her people so much courage and 
fortitude, linked with patience and wisdom, as 
now. 

" It is because her people never before were 
so thoroughly instructed as to their rights, or 
so well trained in methods for their enforce- 
ment. It is because we have promised them that 
when the hour of tension arrived they could rely 
upon us and upon all their scattered kindred. 

" The time has now come to keep that promise, 
and to show to mankind how a people can fight a 
battle without guns and win a victory without 
bloodshed. 

"The gravity of the situation in Ireland de- 
mands instant, intelligent and sober action here. 



496 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" Let the convention at Chicago be the greatest 
and most representative body ever held to discuss 
the Irish question or aid the Irish cause. Let it 
show to the world that all our people here 
demand for the people of Ireland justice and self- 
eovernment, and will sustain them in efforts to 
that end." 

The convention was called to order by the 
Hon. John C. Finnerty, of Chicago, journalist and 
Congressman, in a lengthy and fiery address. 
Hon. Win. j. Hynes, of Chicago, was its Tempo- 
rary Chairman. A Committee on Credentials 
was appointed, consisting of one delegate from 
every State and Territory in the United States 
and Canada. The Committee on Permanent Or- 
ganization was as follows : New York, Judge 
Rooney ; Illinois, Hon. Richard Prendergast; 
Michigan, Rev. Dr. O'Reilly; Ohio, Hon. W. J. 
Gleason ; Pennsylvania, Mr. Patrick Dunlevy; 
Iowa, Hon. M. V. Gannon ; Massachusetts, Hon. 
Edward Lynch. 

The convention numbered 845 delegates. They 
admitted no proxy representatives, and by a de- 
cided vote declined to recognize as delegates 
three Socialists from an organization called 
" Spread the Light Club," by this decision placing 
themselves squarely on record at the outset as 
law-abiding citizens. To emphasize that position, 
Hon. Francis Agnew, of Illinois, the Chairman of 
the Committee on Credentials, declared that "the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 497 

applicants had not been recognized as delegates 
because it was the opinion of the committee that 
the club they claimed to represent was of a po- 
litical nature, and besides there had been strong op- 
position from all quarters to their admission as 
Socialists." 

A cursory glance at the list of the permanent 
officers of the convention will give the reader 
some idea of the representative character of its 
members. Among them were clergymen, jour- 
nalists, lawyers, physicians, bankers and repre- 
sentatives of the commercial and industrial inter- 
ests of the country, many of them differing in 
their religious views, but all of them animated 
with the single desire and purpose of aiding Mr. 
Parnell in his plans of constitutional agitation. 
Here they are : 

President — Rev. George C. Betts, of St. Louis, 
Missouri. 

Vice-Presidents — Hon. Wm. J. Hynes, Illinois; 
Rev. Maurice Dorney, Illinois ; Dr. William Car- 
roll, Pennsylvania ; John Boyle O'Reilly and Hon. 
Patrick A. Collins, Massachusetts ; Patrick Ford, 
New York ; Patrick Smith, Ohio ; James Gibson, 
New Jersey; James J. Kelly, Minnesota; P. H. 
McManus, Indiana ; James Reynolds, Connecti- 
cut; Miss Davitt, Pennsylvania ; Rev. Lawrence 
Walsh, Connecticut; Rev. P. Cronin, New York; 
Rev. W. J. Dalton, Missouri; J. J. Linahan and 
Hon. M. V. Gannon, Iowa; Mrs. Parnell, New 



498 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Jersey; J. B. Mannix, Ohio; Rev. Dr. O'Hara, 
New York ; Dr. John Guerin and Bernard Cal- 
laghan, Illinois; Miss E. A. Ford, John Devoy 
and John C. Maguire, New York ; Hon. Thomas 
A. Moran and Hon. Alexander Sullivan, Illinois ; 
Col. Michael Boland, Kentucky; Rev. D. O'Con- 
nell, New York ; Rev. M. C. McEnroe, Pa. ; Henry 
F. Sheridan, Illinois ; J. D. O'Connell, District of 
Columbia ; Col. John Atkinson and John R. Cof- 
fey, Chicago; John S. Burke, Wisconsin; Dennis 
O'Connor, Chicago ; Dr. William Wallace, Hon. 
John G. Rogers and Thomas Casey, New York ; 
James Mooney, Buffalo, New York ; George D. 
Plant, Illinois ; Mr. Sanderson, New Jersey ; 
Marcus Kavanaugh, Iowa ; Rev. J. McDermott, 
Maryland ; Thomas J. Sheridan, E. S. Murphy 
and T. J. Dennehy, New York ; John V. Crozier, 
Pennsylvania ; M. W. Ryan, William Condon and 
Andrew J. O'Connor, Illinois ; Mr. Brown and 
Joseph Judge, Missouri ; Wm. Stapleton and Rev. 
John A. Fanning, Illinois; John O'Donnell, Penn- 
sylvania; M. J. Costello and J. N. Mullahey, Col- 
orado ; Mr. Kavanaugh and Hon. J. G. Donnelly, 
Wisconsin ; David Sullivan, Illinois ; W. Kenne- 
dy, Wisconsin; N. F. Dunlevy, Pennsylvania; F. 
Gavin and P. Sheahan, Indiana ; P. J. McGuire, 
Canada. 

Marshal — Frank Agnew, Chicago, Illinois. 

Secretaries — J. D. Ronayne, Massachusetts ; 
Hon. T. V. Powderly, Pennsylvania ; Thomas 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 499 

Flatley, Massachusetts ; Martin I. j. Griffin and 
C. Horgan, Pennsylvania ; D. J. Haltigan, New 
York ; George Sweeney, Ohio ; Timothy Crean, 
Illinois ; Jeremiah Galvin, Canada. 

Despatches were received from prominent 
Americans all over the country wishing the con- 
vention " God-speed in its good work," and ac- 
companied by liberal donations ranging from $50 
up to $1,000. Notable among the despatches 
was the following from the lamented Wendell 
Phillips : 

" Boston, Mass., November 2>otk. 
" Congratulate all our friends on the blunders 
of Ireland's enemies and on the serene patience 
and stubborn courage of her friends. 

"Wendell Phillips." 

It is unnecessary to say that the name of that 
illustrious man was cheered again and again. 
To perpetuate his memory and show to the world 
their loving appreciation of his noble- efforts on 
behalf of Ireland's independence, the Irish race in 
nearly every large city in the Union has named 
some of its strongest branches after him. Wher- 
ever they assemble, in convention, at a public 
" celebration," in mass-meeting, at their clubs, or 
at their banquets, they will always hold in grate- 
ful remembrance the whole-souled support and 
the tender sympathy so unstintedly given them 



500 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and their country by this great and gifted Ameri- 
can. Sit tibi terra levis* 

Following steadily in the line of conduct so 
ably marked out by the preceding National Con- 
vention, the Chicago assemblage adopted a series 
of incisive, clear-cut resolutions, which told in no 
uncertain words or phrases exactly the sort of 
platform on which that body stood. They read 
as follows : 

"Resolved, That as, in the words of the Ameri- 
can Declaration of Independence, ' the consent of 
the governed is the only power from which a 
government justly derives its authority,' and as, 
in the words of one of Her British Majesty's 
present Cabinet Ministers — Mr. Joseph Chamber- 
lain — ' after ioo years of English rule in Ireland, 
English rule there can only be maintained by 
fifty thousand bayonets,' this convention declares 
English rule in Ireland to be without either leeal 
or moral sanction, and demands the establishment 
in Ireland of a national government based upon 
the will of* the Irish people. 

"Resolved, That as the English Government has 
avowed the resolve to subjugate the Irish nation 
by wholesale eviction, by the arrest of every 
friend of the popular cause, the suspension of 
every popular right, and the terrorism of military 
force ; and as the Irish people have shown an 
equal determination to meet these, and by pas- 

* Light lie the earth upon thy grave. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 501 

sive resistance defeat this attack on their liberties, 
this convention, representing the Irish-American 
race, pledge the people of Irish birth and Irish 
descent in this country to stand by the people at 
home in this momentous struggle, to the full 
extent of their power and resources. 

"Resolved, That this convention thoroughly 
endorses the policy of the Irish leaders at home 
in the present crisis ; that we have entire confi- 
dence in their patriotism and statesmanship ; and 
that we tender to them, and the Irish people at 
large, the expression of our sympathy and the 
assurance that in every struggle against British 
rule they will be fully sustained by their kindred 
in America. 

"Resolved, That we heartily endorse the ' No- 
Rent ' Manifesto of the home executive of the Irish 
National Land League, at once as the best avail- 
able weapon to strike their landlord jailers,'and 
as a swift and smiting instrument to abolish utterly 
the bad and hateful system, and as the fitting l 
answer of the Irish people to the attempt of the 
Coercion Ministry to force the acceptance of 
defective legislation at the point of the bayonet. 

"Resolved, That with the view of giving prac- 
tical effect to the foregoing address and resolu- 
tions, the convention recommends that a special 
levy of $250,000 from the organizations here 
represented and all other organizations friendly 
to the Irish cause, and from the friends of such 



502 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

organizations, be forwarded as an instalment be- 
fore the first day of February, 1882, to the Central 
Treasurer of the Irish National Land League." 

It was General Patrick Collins who proposed, 
and Hon. Patrick Ford who seconded the resolu- 
tion pledging by the first of February, 1882, that 
contribution of a quarter of a million of dollars — 
equal to fifty thousand pounds. Let it be remem- 
bered that this was on the last day of the conven- 
tion, December 1, 1881, and the reader will be 
able to form an intelligent idea of the sterling 
stuff of which its members were composed. That 
they really " meant business " their words and 
subsequent actions frankly told. This promise, 
it may be added, was kept, except in one particu- 
lar. It was about the 2d or 3d of April of 1882 
when the full amount was subscribed. The 
money, however, arrived on the other side of the 
ocean in ample time to aid the home executive in 
their battle for the right ; so that the intentions 
and pledges of these patriotic delegates were, of 
a verity, substantially carried out. And. at this 
point, I feel it to be my duty to note that this 
characteristic of faithfully carrying out to the 
letter every syllable of its pledges has been a 
distinctively marked feature of. every convention 
of the Irish race in America since the keynote of 
the movement was first sounded in Ireland and 
the United States by Charles Stewart Parnell and 
Michael Davitt. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 503 

Just as the hearty chorus of full-throated "ayes" 
ratifying and endorsing the pledge rang out 
through the convention hall, a reverend delegate, 
turning hastily to General Collins, said : 

"Why did you say $250,000? You ought to 
have put in $500,000! " 

"Oh, Father," replied the General, "I didn't 
want to go beyond the mark. Our people will, 
I'm sure, subscribe every penny of that quarter 
of a million." 

"Subscribe it? Of course they will ; ay, and as 
much more when they know that it's going into 
the right hands and to be applied to a proper 
purpose. I'll tell my people, of the branch of 
which I am president, that I have pledged my 
credit to you for $1,000. I pledge it now. They 
will see that my word is kept." 

They did see that his word was kept. Their 
contribution was among the earliest, although 
their branch was, comparatively speaking, a small 
one. I cite the foregoing conversation and its 
result as an instance of the manner in which the 
different branches went to work with a will and 
raised their quota. 

Among the most earnest and energetic laborers 
in the cause, the ladies of Irish birth or Irish 
descent have always been found in the fore-front. 
The Ladies' Land League of Montreal, Canada, 
in their telegraphed greeting to the convention 
said: 



504 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" Make no terms with the land thieves. . . . 
The ' No-Rent ' Manifesto receives our unqualified 
support, and we are prepared to stand by it. 
The land of Ireland for the people of Ireland. 
No half-way measures. Convey to the people of 
Ireland the assurance that, remaining loyal to 
their leaders, they will receive our hearty and 
earnest support. . . . God save Ireland. 

" Anne McDonnell, President. 

" Ellen Hayes, Secretary!' 

The Ladies' Land League of Buffalo, N. V 
sent their greeting and best wishes, and unquali- 
fied endorsements of the " No-Rent " declaration 
were received from Land League branches and 
other Irish organizations at Little Rock, Arkansas ; 
Pittsburgh, Pa. ; Portland, Oregon ; Hot Springs, 
Arkansas ; Arnold, Pa. ; Winoski, Vt. ; Ishpem- 
ing, Mich. ; Mobile, Ala. ; Eureka, Nev. : Colusa, 
Cal. ; Williamsport, Pa. ; Halifax, N. S. ; Ottawa, 
Ont. ; Philadelphia, Pa. ; Helena, M. T. ; Los 
Angeles, Cal. ; Johnstown, Pa. ; Lebanon, Ky. ; 
Lynn, Mass. ; Concord, N. H. ; San Francisco, 
Cal. ; Elmira, N. Y. ; Chattanooga, Tennessee, 
and very many other places in all quarters of the 
country. 

The convention adopted and officially pub- 
lished an eloquent address to the American people 
and all friends of liberty, which was presented by 
the Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, of Massachusetts, and 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 505 

a carefully selected committee. It arraigned the 
then Gladstonian policy, endorsed Charles Stewart 
Parnell and the " No-Rent" policy, and concluded 
with the following spirited declaration : 

" In whatever efforts the Irish people may now, 
or in the future, make to rid themselves of alien 
domination, and to regain the highest privilege 
that a people can enjoy— that of selt-government 
—we pledge ourselves to be their faithful allies, 
subject to their calls upon us for aid, so far as 
our power and resources may permit, but dictating 
to them no policy, and demanding from them no 

conditions. 

« We believe and declare that Ireland cannot 
be happy, prosperous or contented under the rule 
of an alien Parliament, and, furthermore, we have 
no sympathy with any government in any country 
that has not its strongest foundations in the love 
of the people governed. It is patent to the whole 
world, outside of Great Britain, that the British 
Government in Ireland is the child of injustice and 
the creature of coercion. 

"We applaud, with most heartfelt pride, the 
indomitable spirit of the Irish people at home who 
have never acquiesced in the fraudulent destruc- 
tion of their autonomy, and we hope with them to 
see Ireland restored to her rightful position among 
self-governed nations." 

The Irish envoys or delegates, Hons. T. P. 
O'Connor and T.M. Healy, although they man- 



506 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ifested a lively and active interest in its delibera- 
tions, did not address the convention. At the 
conclusion of its sessions a reception was tendered 
to them and their co-laborer, Rev. Eugene Sheehy, 
at which Judge Moran presided. From their 
speeches that evening were subsequently culled 
by those loyal-hearted priests, Revs. James A. Bre- 
hony and Thomas Barry, Philadelphia, and other 
Irish orators and leaders, pithy selections that 
made some of the texts of their eloquent discourses 
on Irish affairs for several years afterwards. At 
the present day their force and applicability to the 
existing condition of affairs are still equally appa- 
rent. Take a few instances : 

O'Connor-: — " Coercion is growing more useless 
and less powerful in the hands of its employers." 

O'Connor — "The heart and soul are the reali- 
ties of man, and these have not been crushed." . 

Sheehy — " We wish to destroy landlordism only 
as the stepping-stone to a greater and higher 
end." 

Sheehy — " Nothing good — nothing great has 
been purchased without sacrifice. No birth — 
above all that of Freedom — has been without 
pain." 

Healy — "Our policy is not to be bought or 
sold." 

Healy — " The Irish policy is not shaped by 
American dollars or British gold." 



the great irish struggle. 507 

the league's second national gathering. 

The Second Annual Convention of the Irish 
National Land League of America was held four 
months later, on April 12, 1882, in Washington, 
D. C. Here General Collins, the President, and 
Secretary Flatley, resigned their respective offices, 
both of them declining a unanimously proffered 
re-election. Two hundred branches of the 
League, represented by two hundred and fifty- 
two delegates, composed the convention. As 
usual, the utmost harmony characterized their 
proceedings. The resolutions, etc., adopted by 
them were fully in line with those presented at the 
Chicag-o oratherino-. The delegates, recoenizine 
the eminent fitness of James Mooney, of Buffalo, 
N. Y., for the position of President of their 
national organization, selected him for that posi- 
tion unanimously, and, as he was at that time in 
Buffalo attending to his professional pursuits and 
for that reason unable to be present at the con- 
vention, Rev. Father Patrick Cronin was instructed 
to notify him by telegraph of the action of the 
convention and request a favorable response. 
Mr. Mooney telegraphed acceptance as follows : 

"Buffalo, April 13, 18S2. 
"I accept the trust and pledge my best efforts 
to further the good work inaugurated by Michael 
Davitt. It must not be relinquished till the soil 
of Ireland shall be as free as that of America, 
so "James Mooney." 



508 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

John J. Hynes, the ardent, high-souled Nation- 
alist, of Buffalo, was elected National Secretary, 
and Rev. Lawrence Walsh was re-elected National 
Treasurer. 

Of President Mooney it has been truthfully said 
that " no friend of Ireland, in America, has done 
more to make her cause respected." Popular 
with his fellow-townsmen of all races and creeds, 
it was no wonder that the delegates from Buffalo 
in speaking of him declared their honest convic- 
tion that his election would add new life to the 
Irish movement, and that the good will enter- 
tained towards him in that city "would not be a 
circumstance to the popularity that would attend 
him wherever he went through this great country, 
attracting to the Irish cause through his courtesy, 
talents and versatility, all who would hear his elo- 
quent tongue pleading for the oppressed and 
down-trodden natives of Ireland." 

James Mooney was born in Ardeteo-al, Oueen's 
County, Ireland, on June 29, 1838. His parents 
were of the prosperous farming class, and his 
family were always of patriotic impulse, one of his 
ancestors being executed as "a rebel" in 1798. 
When James was five years old his parents 
decided to seek a new home in America, and set- 
tled in Dundas, near Hamilton, Ontario. Here 
he was educated at a private school, and here he 
received his first lessons in the sad history of his 
native country. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 5X1 

Dundas was "something of an Irish settlement," 
and from constantly arriving immigrants the young 
lad heard many a tale of cruel eviction, and his 
tender heart was wrung with sorrow and pity as 
he listened to the tearful recitals of the sufferings 
and hardships of the exiles. It will thus be seen 
that amid such surroundings he could not fail to 
imbibe a love of his mother-land and a hearty 
detestation of the infamous system of misgovern- 
ment under which she was suffering. He com- 
pleted his education in the public schools of Buf- 
falo, and, with the laudable purpose of assisting 
his parents to raise and educate the younger 
members of the family, he engaged as an account- 
ant with a lumber firm at Tonawanda. For a 
short time he held a position in the office of the 
Receiver of Taxes of Buffalo, after which he read 
law in the office of the Hon. Chas. D. Norton. 
When he was twenty years of age he engaged in 
business as a real estate and insurance broker, 
in which he has since continued, winning his way 
to affluence by industry and integrity. He is a 
large real estate owner, a man of high social po- 
sition, and has always been honorably prominent 
in the public affairs of his native city. He is one 
of its leading Roman Catholics, and has three 
times successively been honored with the position 
of President of the Young Men's Catholic Asso- 
ciation. While always contributing to every 
movement that had in view the emancipation of 



512 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

his race or the elevation of its children, Mr. 
Mooney never joined any Irish organization until 
Charles Stewart Parnell and John Dillon visited 
Buffalo in 1880. Desirous that these distin- 
guished Irishmen should receive an ovation worthy 
of them and honorable to Buffalo, he entered 
zealously into the work of preparing for their 
visit. To his influence and exertions was mainly 
due the splendid success of the meeting which 
they addressed, and at which nearly seven 
thousand dollars were subscribed. Shortly before 
this meeting was held Mr. Mooney joined the 
Buffalo branch of the Land League. Always an 
enthusiast, he has worked constantly and ear- 
nestly to keep that prosperous city in the van in 
everything that helps the Irish cause. 

John J. Hynes was one of the most efficient 
National Secretaries of the Land League. He 
was born in Buffalo, N. Y., of Irish Catholic par- 
ents, who arrived in this country in 1847. He 
attended the public schools until he was fourteen 
years old, when he entered Bryant and Stratton's 
Commercial College, where he remained for one 
year. He was only fifteen years of age when he 
began work as clerk and accountant, continuing 
as such until he began his law studies in 1877. 
For seven years he held the important position 
of Chief of the Engrossing Department in the 
Erie County Clerk's Office. He resigned that 
situation after his admission to the bar by the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 513 

Supreme Court of the State of New York and 
began the practice of law. During 1879 and 1880 
Mr. Hynes represented his ward (the largest in 
the city) in the Board of Supervisors, being 
elected by a constituency for the most part 
opposed to him politically, but cordially recogniz- 
ing his fitness for the office. He has had much 
experience in what are usually known as " society 
affairs," possessing notable organizing abilities, 
and having an immense capacity for serious and 
intelligent work. He brings to the discharge of 
the duties entrusted to him tact and promptness. 
He was one of the organizers of the " McMahon 
Corps," a crack Irish-American military organi- 
zation attached to the National Guard of New 
York, serving with it eight years, the last two as 
its commander. He is a charter-member of the 
Catholic Mutual Beneficial Association, which now 
numbers 15,000 members in the United States 
and Canada, and is a member of its Supreme 
Council. 

Mr. Hynes has always been an earnest, inde- 
fatigable and sincere exponent of the cause of 
Irish freedom and was one of the little band who 
first organized the Land League in his native 
city, fulfilling faithfully the duties of Correspond- 
ing Secretary, first in Branch No. 1, later in 
Branch No. 2 (St. Bridget's). He represented 
the latter branch in every Irish national conven- 
tion held in this country since the organization 



514 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of the Land League. He was married in 1878, to 
Miss Anna M. McCarthy, an estimable young lady 
of his native city, who at that time was principal 
in one of the departments of the Buffalo public 
schools. 

When James Mooney was elected President of 
the Land League its constitution at that time pro- 
vided for a Central Council, consisting of the 
three national officers — the President, Secretary, 
and Treasurer — who had full charge and man- 
agement of the National Land League of Amer- 
ica, and through whom all moneys raised in 
this country for the Land League in Ire- 
land were transmitted to Patrick Egan, the 
Irish National Treasurer. At the meetino- of the 
Central Council, in Buffalo, April 18, 1882, it was 
ascertained from the roll of the previous council 
that over nine hundred branches were affiliated 
with the national organization. Owing- to the 
condition of affiairs at that time and the very 
small number of branches represented at the late 
convention, the new Council believed that many 
branches had ceased to exist or had severed their 
connection with the national body. It was deter- 
mined to find out as soon as practicable how 
many branches were in actual existence. Ac- 
cordingly Secretary Hynes mailed a circular let- 
ter of inquiry to every branch secretary whose 
address was on the national rolls. After the ex- 
penditure of much valuable time and considerable 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 515 

labor it was ascertained that only about five hun- 
dred branches in America were, at that date, affil- 
iated to the national organization. 

About this date Mr. Parnell and his associates 
were released from Kilmainham Jail, and the news 
was received in this country with joy and hope 
for better times for the people at home. On the 
part of the National League, President Mooney 
promptly cabled, on May 3, 1882, his congratu- 
lations to " Mr. Parnell and the Irish people on 
the destruction of coercion." 

The release of the Irish patriots gave the new 
officers here an inspiring impulse in beginning 
their work of increasing and strengthening the 
American auxiliary organization. Everything 
seemed bright for Ireland. Success was appar- 
ently at last about to crown the efforts of her 
struggling sons. Encouraging reports were com- 
ing in daily and hourly from all sections of the 
country of branches re-organizing, of new ones 
being established, and of old ones recruiting their 
ranks rapidly. Suddenly came flashing across 
the Atlantic the dreadful announcement of the 
Phoenix Park murders, filling many with dismay 
and disheartening others from whom substantial 
aid and sympathy were confidently anticipated. 

President Mooney, writing of the situation at 
that time, says: "The news cast such a shadow upon 
everything connected with the Irish national cause, 
that it was only by immense effort that the friends 



516 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of Ireland were rallied and the League was kept 
from total dismemberment. For a time we were 
in almost daily receipt of letters from branches 
that had disbanded or were about to do so. One 
of the greatest trials of this perplexing time was 
differences of opinion and advice among friends 
whose counsel was entitled to respectful attention. 
Some were clamorous that the Central Council 
should denounce the crime. Some even advo- 
cated the offering- of a reward from the League 
funds for the apprehension of the murderers ! 
Others advised that we had enough to do to de- 
nounce the crimes of landlordism and the cruel- 
ties done in the name and under the guise of 
English law." 

The Central Council held many sessions, but 
were unanimous in the decision that, deplorable 
as the crime was, the Land League of Ireland or 
America had no hand or part in it, and, therefore, 
it would be unwise and unbecoming to denounce 
it officially, or otherwise take cognizance of it as 
being a matter in which they were in any way 
concerned. To this resolve they adhered firmly, 
turning all their efforts to strengthen and increase 
the American organization, and to bear it safely 
over the waves of misfortune that seemed about 
to overwhelm it. The League passed through 
the crisis safely and began to flourish as it had 
never done before ; but this was the darkest and 
most precarious hour of all its life. Through all 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ."317 

this excitement the national officers were able to 
do their duty, and to keep within the lines in 
which the Land League had been working since 
its organization. 

With the design of encouraging the lukewarm, 
strengthening the weak-kneed, and bringing to 
the aid of the Home Executive the moral, physical, 
and financial support of which they were in sore 
need, the Central Council issued the following 
official circular to every branch in the United 
States and Canada : 

"Irish National Land League of America. 
Central Office, Arcade Building, Main Street, 
Buffalo, N. Y., May 27, 1882. 

"At no time since the beginning of our good 
work has the Land League found itself in socriti- 
caland trying a position as now. Just when success 
seemed about to crown its patient and unselfish 
labors, the dark deed of the assassin was planned 
to rob Ireland of the benefits of justice and peace 
that seemed at last to promise. The infamous 
plot is successful, and Ireland is to be subjected 
to a new code of misrule, so oppressive that 
what has gone before seems almost just and gen- 
erous by comparison. A whole people are to be 
punished for a crime in which they have neither 
interest nor sympathy ; which everything points 
out to be the work of that class who will now 
reap its reward in these new acts of oppression. 



518 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

That England has withdrawn the hand held out 
in meagre and tardy justice does not discourage 
nor disappoint us, for she has never taught us to 
look to her for honor or good faith. We have 
but one duty in this trying hour, and it is to meet 
her renewal of oppression by redoubling our ef- 
forts and increasing our generosity towards those 
who look to us from across the sea for aid and 
comfort. We shall not fail them in their renewed 
struggle; and in view of the fact that 25,000 
evicted tenants are now said to be dependent on 
the Land League, and that the number is increas- 
ing, some special effort seems to be necessary. 
We therefore recommend to every branch in the 
United States to make an extraordinary effort to 
meet the emergency, that by the 1st of October, 
1882, at the very latest, we may have ready for 
transmission to the General Treasurer, a special 
fund, which should not be less than $250,000. 
This would be the most eloquent, the most fitting 
answer we could give to the new tyrannies now 
being prepared for our unhappy fatherland. 

"As enemies are busy at work, trying to cast 
discredit upon our noble leaders, we should also 
give the strongest and most unanimous expres- 
sion to our undiminished faith and confidence in 
Parnell, Davitt, Dillon and Egan. We well know 
their sacrifices and their labors. We should 
pledge them anew our support and sympathy, 
express our firm belief in their good judgment. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 519 

and in their knowledge of what is best in this 
critical hour. 

" Let us all labor to increase our numbers. We 
have an organization that we may well be proud 
of, that every Irishman in America can and 
should join. Let every Land Leaguer bring in his 
friends, let new branches be formed through the 
aid and influence of those already established. 
Above all, let there be union of labor, of zeal and 
of sentiment. A good example has been set by 
large and influential branches in New York City, 
and in Monroe County, N. Y., which, heretofore, 
transmitted their moneys direct to Paris, but who 
now, to further union and to avoid confusion, have 
commenced to transmit through the appointed 
Treasurer for the United States, Rev. Lawrence 
Walsh, of Waterbury, Conn. We trust all other 
branches will soon follow their wise example. 

" If we stand united, if every member will show 
his loyalty by making individual efforts to in- 
crease our numbers, and to replenish our treasury 
in view of the greatly increased tax upon it, our 
organization will be invincible, and its beneficent 
work will keep pace with the tyranny of our he- 
reditary enemy. The people of unhappy Ireland 
must resist now as never before the power that 
strives to crush them. The struggle may be long 
and bitter, for there must be no compromise ; no 
half-measure of justice will suffice. In this hour 
the spirit grows strong, that nothing but a resto- 



520 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ration of our lost nationhood can satisfy Irishmen 
in the old land. United with those who do not for- 
get their wrongs, though living here in freedom 
and peace, they must boldly and manfully claim 
the right — not sue for it — to live as freemen — 
not as serfs — on the soil where God has planted 
our race. 

" James Mooney, President. 

" Lawrence Walsh, Treasurer. 

"John J. Hynes, Secretary. 
"Central Council, Irish National Land League 
of America." 

On the 6th of July, 1882, the Central Council 
visited the City of New York by invitation of 
Michael Davitt — who had returned to America — 
to meet him and the Chicago Committee of 
Seven "for the purpose of consulting together 
and discussing the advisability of a union of all 
the organizations in America who were working 
for the interests of Ireland." The conference 
was held at the Astor House and the following 
gentlemen participated in it: 

James Mooney, President I. N. L. L. of Amer- 
ica, Rev. Lawrence Walsh, Treasurer I. N. L. L. 
of America, John J. Hynes, Secretary I. N. L. L. 
of America, Hon. P. A. Collins, Col. Michael Bo- 
land, Patrick Ford, James Reynolds, Dr. W. D. 
Wallace, and Michael Davitt and William Red- 
mond, of Ireland. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. -",21 

Mr Davitt submitted a plan of a proposed 
Gaelic Union, which, after an informal discussion, 
was referred to the national officers in Ireland. 

Four days after the conference Secretary 
Hynes issued his first quarterly report showing 
that since the Washington Convention $i6,457-5Q 
had been received by Father Walsh, of which 
$701750 had been transmitted to Treasurer 
Egan in Paris. During that three months only 
six new branches had been organized, yet Secre- 
tary Hynes was of the opinion that this "exhibit 
was not very discouraging, considering the trying 
ordeal through which the Land League had 

just passed." 

About the latter end of this month, by the death 
at Bordentown, N. ]., of Miss Fanny Parnell, the 
Irish cause lost one of its most fearless, able, and 
outspoken advocates. Young, beautiful, and ac- 
complished, she united all the charm and tender- 
ness of a true woman with the stern determi- 
nation and decision of character that are the 
marked attributes of her illustrious brother- 
worthy children of a noble race. Her memory 
will live for generations embalmed in the hearts 
of the Irish people whom she loved so well. 
Amono- the last of her thrilling appeals to the 
patriotism of her countrymen was the following- 
bold and striking poem addressed to the Irish 
tenant farmers : 



122 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 



Hold the Hiwvest. 

Now are you men, or are you kine, ye tillers of the soil ? 
Would you be free, or evermore, the rich man's cattle, toil? 
The shadow on the dial hangs that points the fatal hour — 
Now hold your own ! or, branded slaves, forever cringe and cower. 

The serpent's curse upon you lies — ye writhe within the dust ; 

Ye fill your mouths with beggar's swdl, ye grovel for a crust; 

Your lords have set their blood-stained heels upon your shameful heads, 

Yet they are kind — they leave you still their ditches for your beds ! 

Oh, by the God who made us all — the seignior and the serf — 
Rise up! and swear this day to hold your own green Irish turf! 
Rise up ! and plant your feet as men where now you crawl as slaves, 
And make your harvest fields your camps, or make of them your graves ! 

The birds ol prey are hovering round, the vultures wheel and swoop — 
They come, the coroneted ghouls! with drum-beat and with troop — 
They come to fatten on your fle-h, your children's and your wives' ; 
Ye die but once — hold fast your lands and, if ye can, your lives. 

Let go the trembling emigrant — not such as he ye need ; 
Let go the lucre-loving wretch that flies his land for greed; 
Let not one coward stay to clog your manhood's waking power; 
Let not one sordid churl pollute the Nation's natal hour. 

Yes, let them go ! — the caitiff rout, that shirk the struggle now — 
The light that crowns your victory shall scorch each recreant brow, 
And in the annals of your race, black parallels in shame, 
Shall stand by traitor's and by spy's the base deserter's name. 

Three hundred years your crops have sprung, by murdered corpses fed — 
Your butchered sires, your famished sire^. for ghastly compost spread ; 
Their bones have fertilized your fields, their blood has fall'n like rain; 
They died that ye might ent and live — God ! have they died in vain ? 

The yellow corn starts blithely up; beneath it lies a grave — 
Your father died in " Forty-eight " — his life for yours he gave; — 
He died that you, his son, might learn there is no helper nigh 
Except for him who, save in fight, has sworn he will not die. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 523 

The hour is struck, Fate holds the dice; we stand with bated breath ; 
Now who shall have our harvest fair ? — 'tis Life that plays with Death ; 
Now who shall have our motherland? — 'tis Right that plays with Might ; 
The peasant's arms were weak indeed in such unequal fight ! 

But God is on the peasant's side — the God that loves the poor : 
His angels stand with flaming swords on every mount and moor; 
They guard the poor man's flocks and herds, they guard his ripening grain — 
The robber sinks beneath their curse beside his ill-got gain. 

O pallid serfs ! whose groans and prayers have wearied Heav'n full long, 

Look up! there is a Law above, beyond all legal wrong; 

Rise up ! the answer to your prayers shall come, tornado-borne, 

And ye shall hold your homesteads dear, and ye shall reap the corn ! 

But your own hands upraised to guard shall draw the answer down, 
And bold and stern the deeds must be that oath and prayer shall crown ; 
God only fights for those who fight — now hush the useless moan, 
And set your faces as a flint and swear to Hold Your Own. 



The sorrow that was felt in every branch and 
at every fireside at her untimely death found ex- 
pression at every meeting of any Irish organiza- 
tion that was held at or near that time in Ireland 
and America. Here letters poured in thick and 
fast upon the Central Council from branches and 
municipal councils, and hundreds of prominent 
workers in the Land League, urging the council 
to take charge of the arrangements for the inter- 
ment of the remains of Erin's gifted daughter. 
After consulting with Mrs. Parnell the council 
decided that "it would be eminently proper for 
the national organization to assume the charge 
and expense of removing the remains of the la- 
mented Fanny Parnell from Bordentown, N. J., to 



524 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the family vault in Boston, Mass." This was 
accordingly done. President Mooney and Secre- 
tary Hynes represented the national organization 
in the cortege, Father Walsh being absent owing 
to the death of his brother. 

GLOOMY DAYS FOR THE LEAGUE. 

In almost all great movements, like this one of 
the Land League, there comes a time when for a 
brief space a dangerous sort of lethargy or list- 
lessness pervades not only the rank and file who 
form- its main strength, but also its chiefs or lead- 
ers to whom the 6i hovkoi look for inspiration and 
encouragement. It is dangerous from the fact 
that, unless prompt and energetic measures are 
set about to counteract its effects, an apathy fol- 
lows that paralyzes and destroys the vitality of 
the subject of its attack. Disturbing rumors, some 
of them groundless, others with a slight founda- 
tion of truth to support them, conspire to aid in 
the apparently impending ruin. So it was in 
October, 1882, with this grand organization that 
promised so well at its outset and that contrib- 
uted so freely and liberally at all times and on all 
occasions when " the men in the gap " called on 
it for pecuniary or other assistance. Notwith- 
standing the patient and arduous labors of the 
national officers, many of the largest and most 
influential branches disbanded — mostly, however, 
those located in the Western States. Some of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 525 

staunchest and most enthusiastic "workers" at 
the Chicago Convention in 1881 became luke- 
warm, and those who were looked upon as their 
adherents, followers or supporters — call them 
what you may — failed, firstly, in attendance at the 
meetings of their respective branches; secondly, 
allowed their "dues" or contributions to fall in 
arrears ; and thirdly and lastly, manifested an evi- 
dently utter indifference to the prosperity of the 
League that was as disheartening to the Central 
Council as it certainly must have been to the Home 
Executive. Public attention was directed to the 
situation, and statements were made by a number 
of leading journals to the effect that "the Land 
League was dead." 

Undismayed by these reports and rumors, the 
council bravely continued their work of organiz- 
ing new branches, " giving heart " to the branches 
that had remained true to the League, and dis- 
tributing circulars and also weekly copies of 
United Ireland, a newspaper that was one of the 
best recruiting agents they could have used at 
this crisis. By persistent work they were finally 
successful in stemming the tide which had set in 
and was imperilling the life of the organization. 
The following address tells its own story of the 
necessity that existed for the council to speak 
out plainly to the American people and to those 
"at home," in explanation of the gloomy aspect 

of affairs : 
31 



526 gladstone— pa rnell. 

" Irish National Land League of America. 
Central Office, Buffalo, October 9, 1882. 

"A public statement has been made that ' the 
Land League is no longer in existence,' which 
calls for our emphatic protest. The Land League 
does exist, and is doing just as good work for Ire- 
land as at any time since it was organized. We 
should deserve the contempt of every one whose 
sympathy we have won ; should deserve the ex- 
tinction of every hope that has been enkindled, if 
we were now to grow discouraged, or to withdraw 
when the work is but fairly begun. Our plan, in 
all that has been done on this side of the Atlantic, 
has been to follow those whom we recognize as 
guides — the leaders in Ireland — who, being on 
the scene of action, know what is best to be done. 
We have repeatedly pledged ourselves to uphold 
their hands, to acquiesce in their plans — not to 
dictate their policy; to furnish cheerfully and 
generously the aid without which they would be 
powerless to carry out their designs. 

" It would gratify our enemies if we were now 
to abandon the struggle, to wantonly throw away 
the fruit of so much sacrifice and labor. This no 
true friend of Ireland will for a moment think of. 
No ! With Parnell at its head the Land League 
still lives — still promises hope and help for Ire- 
land. Rally to its support, Irishmen, everywhere, 
who have ever believed in its purposes or gener- 
ously helped on its struggle. Let no one mislead 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 527 

those who love Ireland into despondency or faint- 
heartedness. Only those who sow disunion and 
distrust can retard the final triumph. Hopeful and 
united, success is assured. 

"James Mooney, President. 
"Rev. Lawrence Walsh, Treasurer. 
"John J. Hynes, Secretary. 
" Central Council, Irish National Land League 
of America." 

The publication of that address gave, for the 
moment, some ground for the statements of 
malicious falsifiers that the leaders and members 
of secret societies of one sort or another were 
uniting in a general conspiracy to sow dissension 
in the ranks of the Leaguers and thus disrupt the 
organization when its substantial support was 
most needed to aid Mr. Parnell and his compa- 
triots in their gallant battles in the British House 
of Parliament and elsewhere for Ireland's auton- 
omy. I am in a position to know that there was 
not a particle of truth in any of those reports. 
The secret society men were, within my own 
knowledge, frank and outspoken in their more 
than friendly interest both in the welfare of the 
Land League and of its objects. 

"We have," said they, "one common end in 
view, although we are trying to reach it by differ- 
ent means. We believe in physical force. You 
believe in constitutional agitation. The indica- 



528 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

tions are that possibly, in a few years, success will 
crown your efforts. In Parnell you have a great 
leader, the ablest since Daniel O'Connell's time. 
His lieutenants are all men of acknowledged 
ability, purity and patriotism. The civilized world 
looks on and applauds them in their good work. 
Go on. Do your part. If we do not join hands 
with you, we will not interfere with you!' 

This spirit was shown on all sides, and there 
ought to be, there can be no hesitation in assert- 
ing that these secret-society men thus proved 
themselves to be true friends of Ireland. True 
in this, also, that they thus freely gave up what to 
them was a principle — physical force. If some 
among them were desperate men who preferred 
violent measures to more pacific ones for the 
purpose of nationalizing their native land, the suf- 
ferings which, by eviction and the prison-cell, they 
and their relatives and friends had endured had 
made them so. Their wrongs and those of their 
country had fired their hearts, and they had made 
up their minds to retaliate. To them " physical 
force " seemed the only proper means to use. 
They had felt its effects themselves, and, as they 
grimly remarked, " they were only too willing to 
try a little of its effects on their nation's oppress- 
ors." With them vengeance was a fixed purpose, 
and "physical force" the means of accomplishing 
that purpose. They wanted, however, above all 
things, to see Ireland resume her place among 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 529 

the nations of the earth. When they saw a pros- 
pect of that glorious event through the Land 
League, they sheathed the sword, and gave the 
Leaguers their hearty support and countenance 
in very many notable instances. 

On the 24th of October, 1882, Secretary Hynes 
issued his second quarterly report, acknowledging 
contributions amounting to $13,812.71. With the 
balance from the previous quarter and this 
amount Father Walsh transmitted $20,000 to 
Patrick Egan in Paris, who took especial care 
that all funds intrusted to him for the Irish cause 
were most judiciously used. 

The Dublin Convention, which met on October 
17, 1882, gave renewed hope to the friends of 
the Land League in America. The organization 
of the National League at that conference led to 
many inquiries as to whether the same change 
should take place in the United States and Can- 
ada. The office of the Central Council was 
flooded with letters from branch officers and others 
relating to this matter. Father Walsh was 
summoned to Buffalo, N. Y., and after a long 
consultation with his colleagues, it was decided to 
issue the following proclamation: 

"Irish National Land League of America. 
Central Office, Buffalo, N. Y., November 14, 
1882. 

"In answer to inquiries received from many of 



530 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the Land League Branches as to whether we 
would call a special convention to rearrange the 
plan of our organization, and adopt the changes 
made by the recent National Conference held in 
Dublin, we would state that, in our opinion, such 
a call is unnecessary, as the time for our annual 
meeting is not far off, and as the changes made 
in Ireland, and rendered necessary by the strin- 
gent laws in operation there, do not materially 
affect the plan or spirit of our league here — save 
to give it a new impetus and a more definite pur- 
pose — the programme marked out, especially the 
imperative demand for self-governmentfor Ireland, 
meriting the sanction and approval of all sympa- 
thizers. Feeling that our organization is in entire 
accord with the new plans of the Irish leaders, it 
seems useless to incur the expense of an extra 
convention, or to put members to the incon- 
venience of travelling long distances to attend 
one; whatever changes are necessary can be 
easily deferred until the time of our annual 
meeting. 

"We have communicated with Mr. Parnell, as 
to whether there is any necessity of changing our 
organization, and if so, what it would be desirable 
to alter. There has not been time to receive his 
suggestions as yet, but if he makes any of impor- 
tance, they will be submitted to the branches at an 
early date. 

"The leaders in Ireland have expressed their 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 531 

firm reliance upon our continued support, and 
their hope that we will still generously uphold 
them, as we have done in the past. We must not, 
therefore, relax our efforts, nor let our interest 
flag; by keeping up the zealous and enthusiastic 
spirit that has made the Land League so great an 
organization, it will be an easy matter at all times 
to fall into line with our brethren in Ireland, in 
whatever efforts they are making to bring pros- 
perity and justice to that oppressed and misgov- 
erned land. 

"James Mooney, President. 
"Rev. Lawrence Walsh, Treasurer. 
"John J. Hynes, Secretary. 
" Central Council, Irish National Land League 
of America." 

The winter of 1882-83 was a sad and miser- 
able one for unhappy Ireland. Famine ravaged 
the west and extreme north of the island, and 
the pitiful petitions of the wretched inhabitants 
for relief were unheeded by the British Govern- 
ment. The cry of distress reached America, and 
the Central Council determined to make one 
more appeal to their fellow-countrymen on this 
side of the Atlantic Ocean for the famine sufferers. 
Accordingly the following address was issued to 
the Irishmen of America: 



532 gladstone— paknell. 

" Irish National Land League of America. 
Central Office, 19 Arcade Building, Buffalo, 
N. Y., February, 12, 1883. 

"To the Irish National Land League of America 
— to all Irish- Americans : It was the -intention of 
the Central Council of the Land League of Amer- 
ica to call a convention of that body during the 
present month ; but at the request of Mr. Parnell, 
the time for holding the convention has been 
postponed until the latter part of April. At that 
time Mr. Parnell, as well as Mr. Sexton, the 
brilliant orator of the Irish Parliamentary Party, 
and probably Mr. Egan, the late faithful Treasurer 
of the Land League, will be with us. We desire 
to welcome these distinguished patriots with all 
the honors they so justly merit ; and it is our 
earnest hope, therefore, that the convention, at 
which they are to be present, may in point of 
numbers, of intelligence, of enthusiasm, be a truly 
creditable assembly of those who are best and 
most worthily representative of our race in 
America. 

" The call for the convention will now be issued 
about the 17th of March next. We ask the 
co-operation of all Irishmen in our efforts to make 
the occasion an ovation worthy of our honored 
guests. To such as are not already members of 
the League we extend a cordial invitation to join 
the branches now established, or, where none 
exist, to form new ones, and communicate with 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 533 

the National Secretary, John J. Hynes, No. 19 
Arcade Building, Buffalo, N. Y., as soon as fifty 
members have been secured, when they will be 
entitled to send a delegate to our coming conven- 
tion. We exhort every branch already formed to 
labor zealously to increase its membership, so as 
to be entitled to send more than one represent- 
ative. Let us demonstrate to our brave leader 
and his confreres that our sympathy in their noble 
struesrle has not Q-rown cold. 

" We have likewise a plan to offer to all whom 
this circular may reach — a plan for the relief of 
the suffering Irish of the famine-stricken west — 
that, it seems to us, must meet the approval of all. 
Day after day the wail of their misery reaches us, 
the old, sad story is retold, history repeats itself 
in unhappy Ireland. Deadly famine ravages the 
west and north, the tyrant government turns piti- 
lessly from the petition for relief, to spend its 
diabolical energy in demoralizing the east and 
south, hatching conspiracies, bribing informers, 
rewarding perjurers, immolating the innocent. It 
has been said that ' the hat would never again be 
passed for Ireland,' and we do not wish to break 
the promise, nor do we deem that in addressing 
ourselves to the men and women of our own race 
alone, we are doing anything contrary to its spirit. 

" Our plan is that between this date and that of 
St. Patrick's Day, every Irish man and woman in 
America, and every descendant of such, shall 



534 ' ' ' [ -A DSTONE— PARNELL. 

contribute the sum of one dollar to a special fund 
for relief purposes only. To make this a truly 
popular subscription no one shall be allowed to 
contribute more than one dollar, and none less. 
Lists will be opened immediately at the different 
Land League Branches, and moneys received by 
the treasurers ; the name of each contributor shall 
be published in the Irish-American papers. These 
moneys shall be entirely separate from the Land 
League Fund, and shall be transmitted by the 
Rev. Lawrence Walsh, of Waterbury, Conn., the 
General Treasurer of the Irish National Land 
League of America, to the famine-stricken districts 
of Ireland, for relief purposes only. Contributors 
can, if so minded, forward their money direct to 
Father Walsh. We ask each branch to hold a 
final meeting on St. Patrick's Day, to close the 
subscription to this fund. Each person paying 
one dollar can, if he or she desire it, be enrolled 
as a member of the Land League, said contri- 
bution being received in lieu of initiation fee. 

" By this plan a very large sum can easily be 
obtained, such a sum as will be an inestimable 
blessing to the famine sufferers, and surely no 
one will feel the giving of so small a contribution. 
We cannot, in this happier land, be unmindful of 
our starving brethren in Ireland, but as we give 
we can resolve to do all in our power to render 
this constant alms-giving unnecessary, by lending 
our aid to those at home who fight the good fight 

o o o 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 535 

against accursed landlordism, and its train of evils. 
If we cannot soften their hard hearts, we can agi- 
tate and organize against those alien rulers, whose 
unrighteous laws bring on this misery, and who 
answer the prayer of the starving subject by- 
pointing the way to poverty-stricken exile, or the 
degrading workhouse. 

" James Mooney, President. 

"Rev. Lawrence Walsh, Treasurer. 

" John J. Hynes, Secretary. 
" Central Council, Irish National Land League 
of America." 

The response to this appeal was generous, 
Father Walsh being able to remit $23,652.06 to 
the famine districts. This amount, it must be 
remembered, was exclusive of what was sent 
through the Boston Pilot, Irish World, and other 
channels. 

On January 2, 1883, Secretary Hynes' third 
quarterly report showed that Father Walsh had 
received and transmitted to Paris League funds 
amounting to the sum of $8,743.88. 

In the beginning of March, 1883, President 
Mooney and Secretary Hynes held a conference 
with Hon. Alexander Sullivan and Col. Michael 
Boland, of the Committee of Seven appointed by 
the Chicago Irish National Convention of 1881, 
and Patrick Egan, ex-Treasurer of the Irish Na- 
tional Land League, who had arrived in this 



536 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

country a few days previously, relative to the pro- 
priety of calling a convention of representatives 
from all Irish societies in the United States and 
Canada for the purpose of forming one organiza- 
tion, similar to the new National League ol Ire- 
land, and auxiliary to it. 

The result of that conference was the issuing 
of two " calls " — the first one by the Central 
Council, and the second by Mr. Egan, of the 
League of Ireland, Mr. Mooney, of the Irish- 
American Land League, and Col. Boland, of the 
Chicago Committee : 

" Irish National Land League of America. 
Central Office, 19 Arcade Building, Buffalo, 
N. Y., March 24, 1883. 

"In accordance with our annual custom, and 
complying with the provisions of our constitu- 
tion, we hereby issue a call to the several branches 
composing the Irish National Land League of 
America, for a General Convention of that body, 
to be held in Horticultural Hall, in the city of 
Philadelphia. The convention will open on Wed- 
nesday, April 25, at 11 a. m. 

"Referring to our constitution it will be seen 
that it provides that : ' The convention shall con- 
sist of delegates from the several branches of the 
organization in good standing at the time of the 
report next preceding the call for such convention. 
Each branch numbering fifty or more members in 



THE GREAT IRtSH STRUGGLE. -f>7 

good standing at the time of such report shall be 
entitled to one deleo-ate ; and each branch having 
three hundred or more members at the time of 
such report shall be entitled to an additional 
member for each two hundred members. Each 
delegate shall be provided with credentials, signed 
by the president and secretary of the branch 
which he represents, on blanks to be furnished 
from the Central Office.' 

" It is now decided that the distinguished Irish 
leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, with one or more 
of his colleagues, and Patrick Egan, the ex-Treas- 
urer of the Land League, will honor us by their 
presence. To give them such a welcome and 
reception as they deserve will alone suffice to 
call out the fullest strength of the Land League 
organization, and insure its best efforts. 

" Important business will come before this con- 
vention, on which the future usefulness of the 
League will depend, and its closer union with the 
broader and more definite aims of the new Na- 
tional League in Ireland. 

" If anything more were needed — the manifold 
woes and miseries of the times in Ireland, the 
famine visitation, the cruel mockery of law, the 
heartless emigration schemes, the persistent effort 
to break the spirit of the unhappy people, to 
thwart, by means which outrage civilization and 
humanity alike, everything that promises any 
hope for their uplifting — furnish such incentives 



538 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

for a grand rally of the friends of Ireland, that it 
is needless for us to urge all members of the 
Land League to be active and earnest, to be 
ready with their ablest representatives to make 
the coming convention the most memorable and 
imposing in the history of the organization. 

" James Mooney. 

" Rev. Lawrence Walsh. 

"John J. Hynes. 
" Central Council, Land League of America." 

THE SECOND " CALL." 

"Buffalo, N. Y., March 24, 1883. 

"The undersigned, representing the National 
League of Ireland, the Irish National Land League 
of the United States and Canada, and the Com- 
mittee of Seven appointed by the Irish National 
Convention held at Chicago, hereby call an Irish- 
American National Convention, to be held in 
Horticultural Hall, in the city of Philadelphia, at 
n o'clock a. m., on April 26, 1883, f° r tne follow- 
ing and other purposes: 

"First. To express our sympathy with the suf- 
fering people of our race, who, reduced to pov- 
erty by iniquitous laws and bad harvests, are of- 
fered by the government which claims their al- 
legiance only the alternative of the degradation 
of the workhouses which Thomas Carlyle called 
'human swineries,' or exile to foreign lands. 

"Second. To voice the horror which freemen of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 539 

every race feel on beholding a peaceable, indus- 
trious and virtuous nation despoiled by force of 
all vestiees of constitutional liberty ; the lives of 
her citizens ruthlessly sacrificed on the paid and 
perjured testimony of self-confessed villains ; her 
jury-box packed by political and religious bigotry ; 
the ermine of her judicial bench thinly concealing 
Castle conspiracy and partisanship ; the functions 
of government within her confines administered 
by her enemies ; and all her national and political 
rights obliterated by a ferocious coercion act, 
whose tyrannous provisions shock civilization, 
engender and reward crime, and justify every 
legitimate effort of an exasperated people in 
resisting its enforcement. 

''Third. In the city where Irishmen helped lay 
the foundations of American liberty, in perpetua- 
tion of which the blood of their sons has been 
freely poured, to declare, on behalf of the exiled 
millions of our race, that we will never cease our 
efforts to recover for our motherland the God- 
given and inalienable right of national independ- 
ence ; and, that these efforts may be guided, 
under the blessings of Heaven, by the best coun- 
sels of all our people, and be made powerful by 
their combined strength, to blend into one organi- 
zation all the Irish societies of the United States 
and Canada, the new organization to be affiliated 
with the Irish National League of Ireland, of 
which Charles Stewart Parnell is the President. 



540 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" The basis of representation will be one dele- 
gate for each society having a bona fide, member- 
ship of fifty, and not more than one hundred per- 
sons ; and two delegates for each society whose 
membership exceeds one hundred. All Irish- 
American temperance, mutual benefit, charitable, 
literary, military, musical and patriotic organiza- 
tions are eligible to representation. 
" Patrick Egax, 
" Of National League of Ireland. 

"James Mooney, 
"President Irish-American Land League. 

" Michael Boland, 
" Chairman Committee of Seven." 

Here comes in a point in the history of the 
Irish movement in this country that has, through 
a want of accurate knowledge on the part of 
some, been the cause of many discussions — all of 
them, I am glad to be able to say, of a friendly 
character. I refer to the merging of the Land 
into the National League, and for the purpose of 
settling forever all doubts on that topic I quote 
President Mooney's memoranda : 

"As the Land League in Ireland," he writes, 
" was now changed to the Irish National League, 
and as a great many Irish associations in this 
country washed to join in organizing an Irish Na- 
tional League of America to be affiliated to the 
League in Ireland, the Central Council were 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 541 

urged on all sides to make the call for a conven- 
tion broad enough to take in all who wished to 
come, but as officers of the Irish Land League 
of America they felt it a bounden duty to resign 
their trust into the same hands by which it had 
been confided to them, and to allow the Land 
League to decide by ballot whether to merge in 
the Irish National League of America or to retain 
an independent existence. So the Land League 
Convention was called, as was customary, and 
held its sessions, voting to become a part of the 
new and larger organization. 

" It had been hoped and expected that Mr. 
Parnell would be present at this convention, but, 
at the last moment, to the great disappointment 
of everybody, he was unable to attend, owing to 
pressing Parliamentary duties. Rumor was rife 
of discord and dissension that was to mark the 
convention, and it was falsely said that Mr. Par- 
nell feared to come lest something might be said 
or done to weaken his position at home. 

"When the Central Council reached Philadel- 
phia they found quite an excitement prevailing, 
and could only with difficulty allay the fears o( 
some timid ones or the forebodings of others 
that ' all was to be strife and discord.' " 

ENJ) OF THE LAND LEAGUE OF AMERICA. 

The last Convention of the Irish National Land 
League of America met on the morning of April 

32 



542 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

25, 1883, in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, Pa., 
and was the largest that this organization ever 
held. There were present 468 delegates, repre- 
senting 562 branches. 

An unprejudiced literary man, whose official 
duties called him to the convention, wrote thus of 
its personnel : " The composition of the conven- 
tion was rather striking to the casual observer. 
Its appearance indicated a popular make-up ; but 
the average of intelligence and respectability was 
high, owing in a great measure to a large clerical 
and professional representation among the dele- 
gates, comprising a large number of Roman 
Catholic priests and gentlemen well known as 
journalists or literary men in various parts of 
the country." The bench, the bar and the medi- 
cal profession had their representatives, who 
stood shoulder to shoulder with cattle-kings and 
extensive farmers from the far West and the 
hard-working element of the Irish-American peo- 
ple from every quarter of this great nation. The 
intermingling of the " Orange and Green " colors 
in tasteful decorations in the interior of the hall 
was the silent, yet significant warning of the 
Leaguers to all outsiders that nevermore did they 
intend to allow religious differences to enter into 
any of their deliberations or to mar the success 
of the sublime cause in which Irishmen of all 
creeds were unitedly straining every energy to 
foster and advance. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 543 

President Mooney opened die proceedings 
with a well-digested address, delivering it with a 
clearness and emphasis that gave it full force 
with his hearers, and roused the warmest enthu- 
siasm : 

The permanent officers of the convention were 
President Mooney, Secretary Hynes, and William 
F. Sheehan, of Buffalo, N. Y., and J. D. O'Con- 
nell, of Washington, Assistant Secretaries. A 
Committee on Credentials was appointed, consist- 
ing of Judge Rooney, of New York ; Rev. Luke 
V. McCabe, Philadelphia, Pa. ; John J. Power, Con- 
necticut; Timothy H. O'Donovan, Georgia; M. 
T. Maloney, Illinois; P. J. Sullivan, Indiana; M. 
V. Gannon, Iowa; John Fitzpatrick, Kentucky; 
Dr. W. H. Cole, Maryland; M. J. Dawson, 
Michigan ; C. M. Carney, Minnesota ; Chas. 
O'Brien, Mississippi; Thomas Flatley, Massachu- 
setts ; John A. Gallagher, Maine ; W. H. Gorman, 
New Hampshire; Hon. John Fitzgerald, Ne- 
braska ; Hon. W. J. Gleason, Ohio ; B. J. Patton, 
Rhode Island ; W. Mullen, Vermont ; Hon. M. F. 
Kennedy, South Carolina ; Thomas Moffit, Ten- 
nessee ; Patrick McGovern, Virginia ; Dr. Lytton 
Flynn, Wisconsin ; Hon. Thomas Fitch, Arizona. 

After that body had reported through its big- 
hearted chairman, Judge Rooney, the following 
remarkably representative committee was ap- 
pointed to consider and formulate a plan for re- 
organization as the National Irish League : Ari- 



544 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

zona, James Redpath ; Connecticut, James Rey- 
nolds ; Georgia, Col. James F. Armstrong ; Illi- 
nois, Rev. Maurice J. Dorney ; Indiana, James H. 
Allen ; Iowa, M. V. Gannon ; Kentucky, Matthew 
O'Doherty ; Louisiana, Timothy Maroney ; Mary- 
land, Col. E. T. Joyce ; Michigan, Rev. Dr. Charles 
O'Reilly; Massachusetts, Rev. Father T. Conaty; 
Maine, John A. Gallagher ; New Hampshire, 
William H. Gorman ; Minnesota, C. M. McCart- 
ney ; Missouri, Dr. Thomas O'Reilly ; New Jersey, 
John H. Sanderson ; New York, D. C. Feeley ; 
Nebraska, Hon. John Fitzgerald ; Ohio, Major 
John Burns; Pennsylvania, Rev. Thomas Barry; 
Vermont, William Mullen ; Rhode Island, Col. F. 
L. O'Reilly ; South Carolina, Hon. Michael F. 
Kennedy ; Virginia, Patrick McGovven ; Wiscon- 
sin, Joseph G. Donnelly ; District of Columbia, 
Arthur Rooney. 

The annual reports of Secretary Hynes and 
of the Treasurer, Father Walsh, as they were 
read before the convention and unanimously 
adopted after having been scrutinized by an 
auditing committee, consisting of Rev. Dr. 
O'Reilly, Michigan, Dr. Casey, of New York, 
and Thomas H. Doherty, of Massachusetts, are 
valuable as historic documents, showing, as they 
do, the payments made by the treasurer for cer- 
tain expenses that were some time previously dis- 
puted by a few mischief-makers, the actual number 
of branches in existence in each State, and the 



S£l 



> *:--. 



a .■>• 








THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 547 

amount of money credited to each State and Ter- 
ritory during the last year of the life of the Land 
League. 

Secretary Hynes read his statement in loud, 
clear tones, giving short explanations of the details 
where they seemed to be necessary. He said 
that if the list of the branches and their officers 
was not absolutely correct or complete, it was not 
the fault of the central officers, but was because 
of the failure of the various secretaries to keep 
them posted as to the details of the work of the 
branches. In his record the secretary stated that 
he had received official reports from 608 branches, 
105 had disbanded during the year and 83 new 
ones had been formed. The previous roll con- 
tained nearly 900 branches, of which number 298 
had failed to make any report to the central 
office. "There are now on the roll 559 branches 
of the existence of which the secretary has official 
knowledge. These are divided up as follows : 
Colorado, 1 ; California, 1 ; Connecticut, 49 ; 
Georgia, 2; Illinois, 11; Indiana, 5; Iowa, 23; 
Kansas, 1 ; Kentucky, 8 ; Louisiana 2 ; Maryland, 
7; Mississippi, 1; Missouri, 13; Michigan, 13; 
Minnesota, 8; Massachusetts, 140; Maine, 30; 
New York, 130; New Jersey, 19; New Hamp- 
shire, 10; Nevada, 1; Nebraska, 2; Ohio, 14; 
Pennsylvania, 44; Rhode Island, 13; South Car- 
olina, 1; Texas, 1; Virginia, 2; Vermont, 3; 
Wisconsin, 5 ; Tennessee, 1 ; District of Colum- 



548 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

bia, 3 ; Prince Edward's Island, 9 ; New Bruns- 
wick, 1 ; Nova Scotia, 1 : Total, 559. Of the 298 
of which the secretary had no official knowledge, 
69 were accredited to Massachusetts, 30 to New 
York, 29 to Pennsylvania, 25 to Connecticut, and 
10 to New Jersey." 

The secretary's financial statement showed that 
the receipts from the Land League Branches had 
been $61,976.27, of which $45,251.70 was for Land 
League purposes, and $16,724.57 for the relief 
fund. The amounts from the States, etc., were 
as follows: Connecticut, $6,306.10; California, 
$140; Colorado, $200; Georgia, $836; Illinois, 
$263.75 ; Indiana, $107.02 ; Iowa, $1,354.27 ; Kan- 
sas, $12.60;. Kentucky, $1,520.50; Louisiana, 
$66; Massachusetts, $15,721.52 ; Maine, $351.98; 
Maryland, $1,047 ; Michigan, $383.50; Missouri, 
„ $261.30; Mississippi, $12.30; Minnesota, $126; 
New York, $19,892.71 ; New Jersey, $1,916.73; 
New Hampshire, $321.99; Nebraska, $43; Ne- 
vada, $200; Ohio, $1,253.35; Pennsylvania, 
$6,384.25; Rhode Island, $1,499.40; South Car- 
olina, $376; Texas, $70; Vermont, $62.55; Vir- 
ginia, $140; Tennessee, $29.35; Wisconsin, 
$234.80; District of Columbia, $234.50; Prince 
Edward's Island, $235 ; New Brunswick, $326.90, 
and Canada, $45.90. 

In addition to this sum $4,182.12 was received 
from lectures, donations, etc., and $6,004.49 from 
the " dollar subscription," which, with the balance 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 549 

of $6,876.02 from 1882, made a grand total of 
$79,038.90. Of this sum Patrick Egan received 
$27,102; C. S. Parnell, $12,903.10, and Alfred 
Webb, $3,000. There was sent to the famine dis- 
tricts $23,652.06. Miss Parnell's funeral required 
an expenditure of $1,335.09, which was paid to 
J. J. Nolan, and $4,291,24 was expended for the 
running expenses of the Land League, and 
$1,875 went to pay the expenses of the lecturers, 
Messrs. Michael Davitt, A. M. Sullivan and Wil- 
liam Redmond. The total disbursements were 
$74,123.40, leaving a balance of $4,915.50. 

In reply to a question for information as to the 
expenditure for lectures, Secretary Hynes stated 
that the gentlemen had given their services with- 
out charge, and that it was no more than right 
that their expenses should be paid. 

Father Walsh gave substantially the same 
report as given above, with the addition of the 
information that he had remitted to Ireland 
$62,754.06, of which $39,102 was for the Land 
League, and $23,652.06 for the Relief Fund. Of 
the latter sum, $17,475.97 came from the Land 
League Branches, and the balance from the 
" dollar subscription." A detailed statement 
showing to whom in Ireland such payment for the 
Relief Fund was sent, was also submitted. 

The readino- of the following teleoram at this 
point in the deliberations was received with 
applause: 



550 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

"James Mooney, President Land League Con- 
vention: Greeting from Halifax. Let your de- 
liberations be for the good of Ireland, and we will 
endorse you." 

After an address from Thomas Brennan, of 
Ireland, in which he urged the delegates to " let 
self-effacement rule and personal predilections be 
sacrificed to-night, as they will be to-morrow, on 
the altaf of Irish unity," Father Conaty made a 
verbal report from the Committee on Organiza- 
tion. He said it had decided not to recommend 
any plan to the convention, but, as a Committee 
on Resolutions, recommended the adoption of the 
following- : 

"Resolved, That we heartily endorse the princi- 
ples and objects adopted and declared by the 
National Conference held in the Ancient Concert 
Rooms in Dublin, on the 17th day of October, 1882, 
and pledge our earnest support to the Irish 
National League there established. 

"That, in response to the call for an Irish-Amer- 
ican National Convention, to be held in this hall 
to-morrow, and, in view of the prospect that the 
deliberations of that convention will result in the 
union of all patriotic Irish bodies on the continent 
which favor the present Irish policy, in a new 
organization supporting the National League of 
Ireland, the delegates to this convention attend 
in a body the sessions of said Irish-American 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 551 

National Convention, and assist in promoting the 
union." 

A lengthy debate ensued, and while the mover 
of a resolution providing for the appointment of 
a Committee of Seven to act upon the dissolution 
of the Land League of America and the amalga- 
mation with the Irish National League was placing 
his motion on paper, Patrick Egan was introduced. 
The appearance of the Land League's treasurer 
was the signal for the most enthusiastic demon- 
stration that had been seen since the organization 
of the convention in the early morning. The 
majority of the delegates jumped to their feet, 
threw their hats in the air and continued the 
cheering and applause for several minutes. After 
expressing his gratification at meeting so many 
members of the American Land League and being 
able to thank them in person for the help they had 
given the people "at home" in their fight against the 
landlord garrison, he said the land movement had 
been carried on on purely constitutional grounds; 
nothing had been used but moral forces, and no 
weapon except the organized power of public 
opinion. The English journals had repeatedly 
charged that the Land League was responsible 
for crime in Ireland, and a good many well-dis- 
posed Americans had accepted this statement as 
true. In refutation of this, he quoted some figures. 
In 1879 homicides in Ireland numbered 4; in 1848, 
a period of distress also, there were 171. In 1 880 



552 • GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

there were 5; in 1849, 203. Referring to the 
Land League funds, Mr. Egan said: "Since the 
formation of the League there have passed 
through my hands, for the relief of distress, $245,- 
000. I have received from all sources, for Land 
League purposes, $985,000, making in all $1,230,- 
000. Of that sum nearly a million dollars came 
from the Irish in America. Thatof course includes 
the amount received for distress, the amount 
received from Father Walsh, from the Irish World 
and other sources. Whatever benefits the Land 
League had produced for the country, and, as Mr. 
Brennan had said, it had brought about a reduc- 
tion of twenty million dollars per year in rent, it 
had also given some security to the farmers, and 
consequently immunity from landlord tyranny. 
With regard to the expenditure of that amount of 
money I am proud to say that no man, woman or 
child, who ever subscribed one penny to the fund, 
has ever raised any question. Some avowed 
enemies of our race and some disappointed black- 
mailers have attempted to make themselves heard, 
but without avail. After the Chicago Convention 
I addressed a letter to a member of the Commit- 
tee of Seven appointed by that convention, sug- 
gesting that if you, here in America, would 
appoint an auditing committee of two or three, in 
whom you here and we at home would have 
implicit confidence, then I and my co-trustees of 
the fund would give to that committee most entire. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 553 

satisfaction with respect to the outlay of every 
penny of that fund. The committee decided that 
they would not act on that proposal. Before I 
left Paris, however, I insisted, for my own protec- 
tion, that an auditing committee should be appoint- 
ed, consisting of Rev. Father Sheehy, Mr. John 
Dillon and Mr. Matthew Harris, that committee 
auditing every item in my account, and to nobody 
outside of that committee did I feel bound to give 
any satisfaction. I refer now to the newspapers 
which are so anxious to get at our affairs, and who 
are our enemies in England." 

A hot debate on the motion to appoint a Com- 
mittee of Seven was ended by Rev. Father 
Thomas Barry having the roll called to decide 
the matter. The result was the appointment of 
the following: Andrew Brown, of Missouri; 
General Patrick A. Collins, of Boston ; Rev. 
Patrick Cronin, of New York ; Hon. M. V. Gannon, 
of Iowa; Rev. Dr. Chas. O'Reilly, of Detroit; Rev. 
Maurice J. Dorney, of Chicago ; and Col. John F. 
Armstrong, of Georgia. This virtually was the 
end of the Land League in America, and the con- 
vention adjourned at 25 minutes past 1 o'clock on 
the morning of April 26, after having been in 
continuous session, with the exception of two 
very brief recesses, from 1 1 o'clock on the pre- 
vious morning. 

Here, it seems to me, is the proper place in 
which to speak of the life and services of the 



554 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

faithful treasurer of the Land League, Rev. Law- 
rence Walsh, whose death occurred on Thursday, 
January 3, 1884. A zealous, efficient and worthy 
priest of God, the cause of Irish emancipation and 
of temperance lost in him a prudent, disinterested 
and earnest champion. Priest and patriot, all 
who knew him revered and loved him. Rev. S. 
Byrne, O. S. D., one of his closest friends, writing 
his panegyric, says: "The 3d of January, 1884, 
will be lon£- remembered in the grateful and 
sorrowful hearts of the Irish race on both sides 
of the Atlantic. One of their truest, bravest, 
most persistent and successful leaders and friends 
was called from among them on that day. Father 
Lawrence Walsh is now known very generally as 
the late treasurer of the 'Land League of the 
United States ; ' but his intimate friends and his 
hosts of honest admirers knew him besides as one 
of the most religious, intelligent and gifted priests 
in these States or in the world. 

" Endowed by nature with a splendid physical 
frame and a bright intellect, he early in life con- 
ceived the happy thought of consecrating to his 
Maker's service the o-ifts with which he was so 
liberally provided. In this sentiment he entered 
the Seminary of the Sulpicians, in Maryland, and 
was ordained a priest of his native diocese of 
Hartford in 1866. The first interview between 
him and the writer of this brief notice was in the 
spring of 1868, and the writer is glad to say that 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 555 

a friendship was then formed which death alone 
could break. Father Walsh was then young in 
the priesthood, and a young man, too, counting 
his years. But his serious and exact views of 
all questions to which he turned his attention, his 
deliberate method of weighing his reasons for 
convictions, his enthusiasm in clinging to what he 
believed to be right, were even then prominent 
traits of his character. He soon became pastor 
of St. Peter's Church, Hartford, and, after a few 
years, of the important and spirited congregation 
of Waterbury, in the same State of Connecticut. 
Early in 1880, a deep wail of sorrow and want 
was wafted across the Atlantic wave to our gen- 
erous shores from the native island of Father 
Walsh's ancestors. It failed not to awaken in 
his brave heart an immediate and sympathetic 
response. Few men on this continent were better 
acquainted with the history of Ireland than Father 
Walsh. He knew by heart the long record of 
her bitter grievances, the history of her greatest 
men, and especially of St. Lawrence O'Toole, the 
sainted bishop who boldly raised the standard of 
armed resistance against the robbers of his 
nation's honor and the murderers of her life. 
The good and holy priest of New England was 
deeply moved at the idea that even in this nine- 
teenth century, an age, they say, of civilization and 
mercy to the poor, the peasantry of Ireland should 
be aeain the victims of artificial famine, which 



556 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

their rulers could readily have prevented or 
remedied. He threw himself, therefore, with his 
whole soul into the movement inaugurated by 
Ireland's honored son, Charles Stewart Parnell, 
thinking it to be the best thing for Ireland, under 
all the circumstances of the case, that had been 
started in this second half of the nineteenth cen- 
tury. How the dear, good and noble priest 
labored and toiled to unite in this noble and grand 
movement the purest and best spirits of his race 
on this side of the Atlantic, is a very important 
part of its history. Father Walsh's unselfish and 
gallant part in it will stand out through all time as 
a bright beacon-light to guide the footsteps of 
all honest lovers of Ireland and haters of her task- 
masters, whether lay or clerical. But he lies in 
the grave in his native city of Providence — a city 
founded on the principles of resistance to bigotry 
and wrong in 1635 — and the children of Erin at 
home and abroad will build his monument, and 
breathe over his grave a deep and fervent prayer 
for the eternal rest of his blessed soul ; and, in 
thinking of his life-work, they will become braver, 
more united, and better men. May the rest of the 
saints be his portion forever." 

BIRTH AND GROWTH OF THE IRISH NATIONAL LEAGUE 
OF AMERICA. 

In the spring of 1883 a new era in the history 
of the Irish cause in America was inaugurated at 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. f>57 

Philadelphia, Pa. The Land League had been 
suppressed in Ireland. The national spirit, more 
alive in consequence of the tyranny of the Coer- 
cion Act, had organized the National League as 
the successor of its. formidable and hard-working, 
but now extinguished predecessor. The fore- 
going pages of this work have shown how the 
Irish-Americans, resolved to stand by Charles 
Stewart Parnell in the new move which he and 
his able compatriots in Ireland had determined 
upon, had taken the decisive steps of dissolving 
the Irish Land League of America, and appointing 
a committee empowered to merge it into a new 
and more vigorous organization, bearing the same 
title and with the same aims and objects as the 
newly created body "at home." The body of 
men and women who formed this new confedera- 
tion met in Horticultural Hall, Philadelphia, on 
the morning of April 26, 1883, and so representa- 
tive were they, that the newspapers of the country 
by common consent styled the assemblage 

THE IRISH RACE IN CONVENTION. 

More than twelve hundred delegates were 
present, representing thirty-two States and Terri- 
tories and Canada. Australia was also repre- 
sented in the person of two delegates, Revs. 
William Slattery and John Gallagher. It was 
undoubtedly the largest body ever assembled on 
this continent for any political purpose, and its 



558 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

personnel was equally as high as that of the 
smaller body which met on the previous day in 
the same hall. The deliberations of the conven- 
tion concentrated the attention of the country at 
large upon it from the opening of its first session 
to the end of the last one. The leading news- 
papers of England, Ireland, Scotland and France 
had a corps of intelligent correspondents, noting 
its transactions for the information of their read- 
ers, and cabling the discussions and actions of the 
delegates. Every journal of any prominence in the 
United States, and many in Canada, had lengthy 
and detailed reports telegraphed of the proceed- 
ings of every session. Some of them anticipated 
"a ruction "among the delegates, under the impres- 
sion that O'Donovan Rossa or some of his friends 
would " raise trouble," and their manaoqnor editors 
in several instances telegraped to their reporters 
or correspondents instructing them to " write up 
the shindy at length." At no time was there any 
" trouble," or even any likelihood of it, and the 
American press, without exception, passed the 
highest encomiums upon the convention after its 
adjournment. 

The keynote of the convention and of the new 
era was struck by the Hon. Alexander Sullivan, 
of Illinois, in a short but singularly comprehensive 
speech, calling the gathering to order. Slender 
of frame, a spare and youthful-looking man with 
a quiet, strong face that would attract attention to 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 559 

itself in any assemblage of distinguished men, the 
leader of his race in America, sensitive as a 
woman, brave as the most gallant and soldierly 
of his race, his appearance was received with a 
storm of applause. " The duty of formally open- 
ing this convention," said he, " has been assigned 
to me by the distinguished gentlemen whose 
names are appended to the call. When we 
behold the personal magnitude of this assem- 
blage ; when we consider the geographical area 
from which it has been spontaneously drawn ; 
when we contemplate the intensity of the passion 
which animates it for the sole object we have in 
view, and the diversity of honest opinion concern- 
ing the methods by which that object ma)' be ac- 
complished, it is meet that we should, on the 
very threshold of our debates, invoke Him in 
whose hands are the destinies of the nations, that 
our proceedings may be characterized by wisdom, 
toleration and prudence ; that they may result 
in that actual unity which alone will insure sub- 
stantial progress in securing justice for our 
motherland. 

" We hold the anomalous position of being the 
only fairly and freely chosen Parliament which 
may assemble to consider the welfare of a 
wretchedly oppressed, plundered and misgov- 
erned people ; and we are restrained at the same 
time from stepping outside the functions of auxil- 
iaries to the patriots who are heroically struggling 



33 



560 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

at home, and in an alien and hostile legislature, in 
the vain hope of awakening the long-suspended 
conscience of a powerful and brutal foe. How 
great are the possibilities, how great the respon- 
sibilities of this convention ! We have met, 
neither on the one hand to dictate to our breth- 
ren in Ireland in anything, nor on the other hand 
to apologize to their and our common enemy for 
anything. We have met to organize and con- 
centrate all the forces of our race, that their united 
strength shall be made potential in our national 
struggle. We have met to solidify all the ele- 
ments of our national sympathy, that hereafter 
there shall be an authorized body to speak, not 
for a party, not for a man, but for united, exiled 
Ireland. We have met to tell our brethren in Ire- 
land that it is theirs to choose the road which leads 
to liberty, and ours to march with them upon it. 
The racial blood that flows in our veins shall feel 
the same pulse-beat as theirs ; and that beat shall 
be as firm and as steady as the tap of the drum 
on the morning of battle. 

" That we may have upon our deliberations the 
approval of Almighty God, and of all just men 
who love liberty, we must show in this, the Par- 
liament of our race, assembled in the City of 
Brotherly Love, that every party is less than the 
cause, that every individual is esteemed below our 
country, and that every Irishman is a brother." 

On the motion of Rev. Dr. George C. Betts, a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 561 

Protestant Episcopalian rector from St. Louis, 
Mo., Rev. M. J. Dorney, a Roman Catholic pastor 
of Chicago, 111., was elected temporary chairman. 
Committees on credentials, resolutions and per- 
manent organization were appointed, a delegate 
from each State and Territory serving on each 
committee. While these committees were de- 
liberatino- in different ante-rooms addresses were 
made by Rev. Dr. Betts. Fathers Cronin, Gal- 
lagher and Slattery, and the following telegram 
was read from William McCready, of Louisville, 
Ky.: 

" Sons of Erin — Patriots : Ireland's hopes are 
centred in you ; sink all differences for her sake ; 
unfurl a stainless banner with 'Irish-American 
National League ' inscribed thereon, and Erin's 
deliverance will soon be won." 

The permanent officers of the convention 
were: 

President. Hon. M. A. Foran, Cleveland, Ohio. 

Secretary, John J. Hynes, Esq., Buffalo, N. Y. 

Assistant Secretaries : John J. Enright, Michi- 
gan ; Edward Fitzwilliams. Massachusetts ; Cor- 
nelius Horgan, Pennsylvania; J. D. O'Connell, 
Washington, D. C. 

Vice-Presidents : Patrick Egan, Ireland ; Rev. 
M. J. Masterson, Massachusetts ; M. D. Ryan, 
Colorado ; Edward Tobin, Montreal, Canada ; 
James Reynolds, Connecticut; John H. Parnell, 



562 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Georgia ; John Carroll, Indiana ; Dr. William B. 
Wallace, New York ; C. J. Smyth, Nebraska ; 
Rev. J. M. Mackay, Ohio ; Hon. T. V. Powderly, 
Pennsylvania ; Joseph Mullen, Rhode Island ; 
W. J. O'Connor, South Carolina ; Hon. Thomas 
Fitch, Arizona ; Patrick McGovern, Virginia ; 
Hon. J. C. Corrigan, Wisconsin ; Captain E. 
O'Meagher Condon, District of Columbia ; C. J. 
Wheeler, Vermont ; William Condon, Delaware ; 
John McAteer, Kentucky; Timothy Crean, Illi- 
nois ; John Fitzpatrick, Louisiana ; James Doyle, 
Maryland; Hon. M. V. Gannon, Iowa; Rev. 
Charles O'Reilly, Michigan; C. M. McCarthy, 
Minnesota ; Dr. Thomas O'Reilly, Missouri ; John 
Hayes, New Hampshire ; John J. Berry, New 
Jersey ; Rev. Wm. Slattery, Timora, Australia ; 
Rev. John Gallagher, Australia ; Mrs. Delia T. S. 
Parnell, Ladies' League of America. 

Declaring- that " it is time we had a unification 
of Irish societies," Chairman Foran opened the 
real business of the convention with the asser- 
tion ; " We never shall be satisfied so long as the 
meanest cottager in Ireland has a link of the 
British chain clanking on his limbs. He may be 
in rags, he shall not be in irons." At the conclu- 
sion of his address the following cablegram from 
Mr. Parnell was read: 

" To James Mooney, President of Irish Con- 
vention, PhiladclpJiia. London, April 26: My 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 563 

presence at the opening of the most representa- 
tive convention of Irish-American opinion ever 
assembled being impossible, owing to the neces- 
sity of my remaining here to oppose the Criminal 
Code Bill, which re-enacts permanently the worst 
provisions of the Coercion Act, and which, if 
passed, will have the effect of placing the consti- 
tutional movement at the mercy of the British 
Government, I would ask you to lay my views 
before the convention, and would advise that a 
platform shall be so framed as to enable us to 
continue to accept help from America, and avoid 
affording any pretext to the British Government 
for entirely suppressing the national movement 
in Ireland. In this way only can unity of move- 
ment be preserved in both Ireland and America. 
I have perfect confidence that by prudence, moder- 
ation and firmness, the cause of Ireland will con- 
tinue to advance, and that, though persecution 
rests heavily upon us at present, before many 
years shall have passed we shall have achieved 
those great objects for which for so many years 
our race has struofaled. 

" Charles Stewart Parnell." 

Stirring addresses were made by Rev. Fathers 
Agnew, of Scotland (Father Agnew is now sta- 
tioned in Chicago, Illinois), and John Boylan, of 
Ireland. The latter's speech, full of fire and ring- 
ing eloquence, aroused his hearers to the highest 



564 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

pitch of enthusiasm. He said he felt proud to be 
called upon by such an assemblage, representing 
the rank, intelligence and public spirit of his race 
in this land, and composed of men who had 
learned the language of freedom, knew the power 
of free speech, felt that there was a glorious 
future dawning for Ireland, and appreciated the 
fact that it is only by sincere unity and indomita- 
ble bravery that victories are won. The past 
emigration from Ireland had been productive of 
good. The exiled sons of Erin, whom the Lon- 
don Times once declared to have " gone with a 
vengeance," were present in the enjoyment of 
" life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Their 
numbers had swelled forth until they had become 
a mighty factor in this great republic. 

It was pleasing to reflect that the emigration 
that drained from Ireland the elements of wealth, 
power and greatness flowed in life-giving streams 
of energy and valor into another country, and that 
country the powerful and jealous rival of England. 
Every pang of the national heart of Ireland 
seemed to be but a pulsation that drove to the 
remotest arteries of the world the life-blood of 
Irish patriotism, and caused Irishmen to stretch to 
each other the right hand of fellowship, forming 
around the wide world a girdle of national love 
and patriotism that extended from the east to the 
west, and coupled the north and south poles with 
the wide circle of exiled but glorious affections. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 565 

At present Catholic and Protestant were heart 
to heart and hand in hand moving together and 
assuring each other that on the present question 
of Ireland's resurrection they have one common 
ground to stand upon, one common ground to 
right for, and one common enemy to oppose. 

" I hope that this great republic, that has 
afforded such a magnificent asylum to my exiled 
countrymen, will be with us in this great question. 
America can say to us: 'I gave you employment, 
I opened my doors to your homeless, and gave 
land to your landless ; ' but the Irishman can 
reply : ' Yes ; but I have been the instrument of 
your hardest toil, the willing architect of your 
civil and military renown ; the fiery blood of my 
exiled countrymen swept like a torrent over your 
vast continent, pouring its fresh streams into the 
onward current of American nationality; and, 
whilst treacherous England, which now, by fawn- 
ing sycophancy and by wily arts, endeavors to 
secure your confidence, made that never-to-be- 
forgotten attempt to drive the assassin's dagger 
into your bleeding heart when you were stagger- 
ing under a terrible internecine war, Irish blood 
flowed freely into the fraternal current that sanc- 
tified the statue of liberty and anointed the down- 
trodden slave.' " 

It was during the afternoon of the second day's 
session that the convention adopted the pream- 
bles and resolutions that formed the subject of so 



566 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

much favorable comment afterwards on the part 
of the American press and people. Rev. Dr. 
O'Reilly read them in a tone of voice that rang 
throughout the spacious hall, and gave to certain 
portions of them an emphasis that aided their 
effectiveness and helped to give heartiness, if any- 
thing could have been needed beyond the words 
he read, to the applause by which he was fre- 
quently interrupted. Here are the preambles and 
resolutions : 

" The Irish-American people, assembled in con- 
vention at Philadelphia, submit to the intelligence 
and right reason of their fellow-men that the duty 
of government is to preserve the lives of the gov- 
erned, to defend their liberty, to protect their 
property, to maintain peace and order, to allow 
each portion of the people an equitable and effi- 
cient voice in the legislature, and to promote the 
general welfare by wise, just and humane laws. 
We solemnly declare, and cite unquestioned his- 
tory and the universal knowledge of living men 
in testimony thereof — 

" First. That the English Government has ex- 
isted in Ireland not to preserve the lives of the gov- 
erned, but to destroy them. Entire communities 
it has wantonly massacred by the sword. To the 
asylums of terrified women it has deliberately 
applied the blazing torch. Into helpless towns it 
has discharged deadly bombs and shells. Through 
consecrated crypts, where age and infancy sought 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 557 

shelter, it has sent its bloody butchers. The 
sacred persons of venerable priests it has stretched 
upon the rack or suspended from the gibbet. 
Puling babes have been impaled on the points of 
its bayonets because, in their own words, its emis- 
saries ' liked that sport.' Its gold has been folded 
in the hand of the assassin, and has rewarded the 
infamy of the perjured traitor. Its treacherous 
falsehood has lured patriots to unsuspected death. 
As if the sword, the cannon, the torch, the scaffold, 
the dagger and the explosive were not enough, it 
enjoys the unique infamy of being the only Gov- 
ernment known to ancient or modern times which 
has employed famine for the destruction of those 
from whom it claimed allegiance. Forcibly rob- 
bing the Irish people of the fruits of their own 
toil, produced by their own labor, it has buried 
not a hundred, not a thousand, but more than a 
million of the Irish race, unshrouded, uncofhned, 
in the grave of hunger. It has mercilessly com- 
pelled other millions, in compulsory poverty, to 
seek in alien lands the bread they were entitled 
to in their own. There is no form of cruelty- 
known to the lowest savage which it has not prac- 
tised on the Irish people in the name of the high- 
est civilization. There is no device of fiendish 
ingenuity it has not adopted to reduce their num- 
bers. Within two years it has massacred chil- 
dren, and woman's body has been the victim of 
its licensed ruffians. There is no species of de- 



56S GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

structive attack, however insidious or violent, an- 
cient or modern, rude or scientific, whether 
directed against life or matter, in any portion of 
the globe, for which its barbarities in Ireland have 
not furnished the example. There is no form of 
retaliation to which despair or madness may resort 
for which English cruelty in Ireland is not exclu- 
sively responsible. 

" Secondly. We declare the English Govern- 
ment in Ireland has not defended the liberty of 
the people, but has annihilated it. The statutes 
enacted since the invasion amount to a series of 
coercion laws, framed to deprive citizens of all 
vestiges of personal freedom and reduce them to 
outlawry, in order to confiscate their property and 
compel them to flee to foreign lands. Since the 
beginning of the present century, when the Irish 
Parliament was abolished, the laws for Ireland 
have been made in England ; and during that 
period habeas corpus and the right of trial by 
jury have been suspended more than fifty times, 
hordes of soldiers have been loosed upon a people 
forbidden to bear arms, and a state of war, with 
all its attendant horrors, with occasionally those 
of retaliation, has been maintained. To-day rep- 
resentatives of the people are in prison, guiltless 
of crime. Freedom of speech is abolished ; free- 
dom of the press is abolished. The right of 
peaceable public meeting is annulled. No man's 
house is secure, night or day, from armed ma- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 5f,9 

rauders, who may insult and harass his family. 
Without a warrant the citizen may be thrown into 
prison ; without counsel he may be put on mock 
trial before a prejudiced judge and a packed jury. 
On the lying averments of purchased wretches his 
liberty may be sacrificed or his life taken in the 
name of law. 

" Thirdly. Instead of protecting the property 
of the people, the English Government in Ireland 
has been a conspiracy for its injury and ruin. 
Of 20,000,000 acres of food-producing land, 
6,000,000 have been allowed to lie waste. The 
ownership of the remainder, generally acquired 
by force or fraud, has been retained in the hands 
of ravenous monopolists, who have annually 
drained the country of its money in the form of 
rents, no portion of which goes back to the Irish 
people. In addition to this, an iniquitous system 
of taxation imposes on the people a gigantic bur- 
den for the sustenance of a foreign army, for an 
oppressive constabulary, for salaries to super- 
numerary officials and placemen, for pensions to 
English favorites, for blood-money for informers, 
and for a vulgar court, whose extravagance is 
equalled only by the sham of its pretentions. 
The naturally created capital of the country is 
sent to England, on one pretext or another, and 
brings no exchange except articles of English 
manufacture, which the Irish people, under self- 
government, would produce for themselves or 



570 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

purchase in America. Irish manufactures, de- 
liberately destroyed by England in the last cen- 
tury, are still dormant. Her immense water- 
power turns no wheels. Her canals are all but 
impassable. Her rivers are obstructed. Her 
useful clays and valuable minerals are untouched. 
In her beautiful harbors are few ships except those 
of her enemy. English law for the protection of 
property in Ireland has been a lance to make Ire- 
land bleed at every pore for the benefit of the 
heartless landlord and the English manufacturer. 

"Fourthly. The English Government in Ire- 
land has not maintained peace and order, but has, 
for seven hundred years, broken her peace and 
destroyed her order. 

" Fifthly. The English Government in Ireland 
does not allow that portion of the empire an equi- 
table and efficient voice in the legislature. In 
England one-twelfth of the population votes for 
members of Parliament ; in Ireland one-twenty- 
fifth of the population votes for members of 
Parliament. In England the registration laws 
are favorable to the voter ; in Ireland they 
are inimical to the voter. In England all 
classes of the population are fairly represented ; 
in Ireland the poor law is employed to 
secure to landlords and place-hunters a prepon- 
derance in the national delegation. In England 
the judiciary is independent of the executive and 
sympathizes with the people ; in Ireland the judi- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 57] 

ciary is the creature and a part of the executive, 
and appointed exclusively from the enemies of 
the people. In England the magistracy is chosen 
without regard to creed ; in Ireland ninety-seven 
per cent, of the magistrates, having jurisdiction 
over personal liberty, are selected from a creed 
rejected by seventy-eight per cent, of the people, 
and the detestable spirit of religious bigotry is 
thus legalized and perpetuated. In England the 
laws creating civil disabilities on account of re- 
ligion have long been dead. In Ireland laws 
made under Edward III., Queen Elizabeth, the Earl 
of Strafford, Charles II., Queen Anne, and their 
successors are still vital to torment a people for 
whose oppression no statute is found too hoary 
by venal and truculent judges. Every measure 
of legislation proposed by an English member re- 
ceives courteous consideration. Any measure, 
however just, necessary or humane, proposed by 
patriot Irish members is certain of contemptuous 
rejection by a combined majority of both the 
great English parties. Thus the educational sys- 
tem of Ireland is notoriously inadequate. Thus 
it is that evictions, unknown in England, and de- 
clared by Mr. Gladstone to be almost equivalent 
to death sentences, are of daily occurrence in Ire- 
land, and have nearly doubled in five years, in 
spite of the boasted benefits of the Gladstone land 
laws. Thus it is, that, although, according to 
government returns, the criminals are twenty- 



572 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

seven in 10,000 of English population, and only 
sixteen in 10,000 of the Irish population, in spite 
of the exasperation to which they are subjected ; 
yet England enjoys constitutional liberty, and Ire- 
land is under worse than martial law. The in- 
trepid and persistent attempts of a patriot Irish 
deputation to obtain in the English Parliament 
just and humane laws for Ireland has always 
been, is, and, in our belief, must continue to be, a 
a failure. 

" Now, therefore, in view of these facts, be it 
"Resolved, by the Irish-American people, in 
convention assembled, that the English Govern- 
ment in Ireland, originating in usurpation, per- 
petuated by force, having failed to discharge any 
of the duties of government, never having ac- 
quired the consent of the governed, has no moral 
right whatever to exist in Ireland ; and that it is 
the duty of the Irish race throughout the world to 
sustain the Irish people in the employment of all 
legitimate means to substitute for it national self- 
government. 

"Resolved, That we pledge our unqualified and 
constant support, moral and material, to our coun- 
trymen in Ireland in their efforts to recover national 
self-government, and, in order the more effectually 
to promote this object, by the consolidation of all 
our resources and the creation of one responsible 
and authoritative body to speak for Ireland 
in America, that all the societies represented 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 573 

in this convention and all that may hereafter 
comply with the conditions of admission, be 
organized into the Irish National League - of 
America, for the purpose of supporting the 
Irish National League of Ireland, of which 
Charles Stewart Parnell is President. 

"Resolved, That we heartily endorse the noble 
sentiment of Bishop Butler, of Limerick, 'that 
every stroke of Forster's savage lash was for 
Irishmen a new proof of Parnell's worth, and an 
additional title for him to the confidence and 
gratitude of his countrymen.' 

"Resolved, That we sympathize with the labor- 
ers of Ireland in their efforts to improve their 
condition ; and, as we have sustained the farmers 
in their assault upon the landlord garrison, we 
now urge upon the farmers justice and humane 
consideration for the laborers. In the words, for 
the employment of which an Irish member of Par- 
liament was imprisoned, we demand that the 
farmers allow the laborers ' a fair day's wages for 
a fair day's work.' 

"Resolved, That as the manufactures of Great 
Britain are the chief source of her material great- 
ness, already declining under the influence of 
American competition, we earnestly counsel our 
countrymen in Ireland to buy nothing in England 
which they can produce in Ireland or procure 
from America or France; and we pledge our- 
selves to promote Irish manufactures by encour- 



574 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

aging their import into America, and to use our 
utmost endeavor, by plain statements of fact and 
discrimination in patronage, to persuade American 
tradesmen from keeping English goods on sale. 

"Resolved, That an English Ministry, ostenta- 
tiously 'liberal,' has earned the contempt and de- 
testation of fair-minded men throughout the world 
by imprisoning more than a thousand citizens of 
Ireland, without accusation or trial, a number of 
whom were noble-hearted women, emja^ed in 
works of mercy among the evicted victims of 
landlord rapacity and English law. 

"Resolved, That this convention thanks Rt. Rev. 
John Ireland, Bishop of St. Paul, Rt. Rev. John 
O'Connor, Bishop of Omaha, Rt. Rev. John Lan- 
caster Spalding, Bishop of Peoria, Most Rev. John 
Williams, Archbishop of Boston, Rt. Rev. S. V. 
Ryan, Bishop of Buffalo, Most Rev. Patrick A. 
Feehan, Archbishop of Chicago, Rt. Rev. Edward 
Fitzgerald, Bishop of Little Rock, and their co-la- 
borers, for their efficient efforts in providing homes 
for the Irish immigrants into the United States. 
The people of Ireland are, by the laws of God and 
nature, entitled to live by their labor, in their native 
land, whose fertile soil is abundantly able to 
nourish them ; but, since a brutal government 
compels large numbers to emigrate, it is the duty 
of their countrymen to warn them against the 
snares of poverty in large cities and assist them 
in the agricultural regions. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 575 

"Resolved, That the policy of the English Gov- 
ernment, in first reducing the Irish peasantry to 
abject poverty and then sending them penniless 
to the United States, dependants on American 
charity, is unnatural, inhuman, and an outrage 
upon the American Government and people. We 
respectfully direct the attention of the United 
States Government to this iniquity, protest against 
its continuance, and instruct the officials who shall 
be chosen by this convention to present our pro- 
test to the President of the United States, and 
respectfully, but firmly, to urge upon the President 
that it is the duty of the Government of the 
United States to decline to support paupers whose 
pauperism began under and is the result of Eng- 
lish misgovernment, and to demand of England 
that she send no more of her paupers to these 
shores to become a burden upon the American 
people. 

"Resolved, That this convention welcomes the 
sturdy and undaunted patriot and the prudent 
custodian, Patrick Egan, who, to protect the Land 
League funds from the robber-hands of the En<r- 
lish Government, voluntarily abandoned his pri- 
vate business, and accepted a long exile in a 
foreign land; the integrity of whose guardianship 
has been certified, after a minute examination of 
his books, by the distinguished and independent 
patriots, John Dillon, Rev. Eugene Sheehy, and 
Matthew Harris. Grateful for his invaluable ser- 

34 



576 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

vices, his countrymen rejoice that they possess on 
this important occasion the advantage of his wise 
and experienced counsel ; and are proud to 
welcome him to their hearts and their homes." 

"As the chairman was announcing the adoption 
of the resolutions, the hall became," writes Mr. 
John J. McKenna, of Philadelphia, Pa., " a scene 
of the wildest enthusiasm. The delegates rose 
en masse and waved their hats over their heads, 
as they sent up cheer after cheer, and the ladies 
on the stage arose and waved their handkerchiefs." 

By a unanimous vote the following was adopt- 
ed as the platform of the organization : 

" Whereas, in the opinion of the citizens of 
America and Canada, Irish and of Irish descent, it 
is needful, for the purposes hereinafter set forth, 
that, sinking all private prejudice and creed dis- 
tinctions, they do unite to secure this common end, 
do band themselves together under the name and 
title of the Irish National League of America. 

ARTICLE I. 

"The objects of the Irish National League of 
America are : 

"I. Earnestly and actively to sustain the Irish 
National League in Ireland with moral and 
material aid, in achieving self-government for 
Ireland. 

" 2. To procure a clearer and more accurate 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 577 

understanding, by the American people, of the 
political, industrial, and social condition of Ireland, 
that they may see for themselves that her poverty 
is the result of centuries of brute force and 
destructive legislation ; and that, if permitted to 
make her own laws on her own soil, she will 
demonstrate the possession of all the essentials, 
natural and ideal, for political autonomy, bene- 
ficial alike to Ireland and the United States. 

"3. To promote the development of Irish man- 
ufactures, by encouraging their import into the 
United States, to promote the study of Irish his- 
tory, past and present, and to circulate carefully 
prepared literature in schools and societies, that 
the justice of the cause may be thoroughly defend- 
ed against ignorance, malice, and misrepresen- 
tation. 

"4. To encourage the study of the Irish lan- 
guage, the cultivation of Irish music, and an 
enlightened love of the art characteristics which 
made the past of our race bright amid darkness, 
and have always secured for the Celt success and 
renown in every country in which he has had an 
equal opportunity with his fellows. 

"5. To hurt the enemy where he will feel it 
most, by refusing to purchase any article of Eng- 
lish manufacture and by using all legitimate influ- 
ences to discourage tradesmen from keeping 
English manufactures on sale. 

" 6. To abolish sectional feeling, to destroy 



578 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

those baleful animosities of province and creed 
which have been insidiously handed down by the 
enemy, to weave a closer bond of racial pride and 
affection, and to keep alive the holy flame of Irish 
nationality while performing faithfully the duties 
o-f American citizenship. 

" Section 2. The officers of the League shall be 
a President, Vice-President, Treasurer, and Sec- 
retary. 

"Section 3. The President shall preside at all 
meetings of the League and perform such other 
duties as may hereinafter in these articles be 
imposed upon him. 

" Section 4. In the absence or inability to serve 
of the President, his duties shall be discharged by 
the Vice-President. 

"Section 5. The Treasurer shall properly ac- 
count for all moneys paid to him by the Secretary 
on behalf of the League, and make explicit reports 
thereof annually to a convention of this League. 

"Section 6. The Secretary shall keep correct 
records of all meetings of the League, receive all 
moneys for its use from subordinate branches and 
affiliating organizations in States and counties, 
and pay the same over to the Treasurer, taking 
his receipt therefor, and all moneys so paid to the 
Secretary shall be by draft or post-office order in 
favor of the Treasurer. 

"Section 7. The governing body of the League 
shall consist of the President, Vice-President and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 579 

Council, which shall be composed of one member 
from each State, Territory, the District of Colum- 
bia and the Dominion of Canada, and which shall 
be elected by the National Convention, and shall 
meet at least once annually, the time and place 
for which shall be designated by the president. 

"Section 8. The governing body shall meet at 
least once annually at the time and place hereto- 
fore provided, and shall frame an organization 
similar in character for each State and Territory 
and the Dominion of Canada. They shall pro- 
vide for the general welfare of the organization, 
and they shall have power necessary to promote 
the interests and extend the organization and 
influence of the League. 

" Section 9. The Council shall appoint of its 
number an executive Committee of Seven, to be 
centrally located, for the more effective adminis- 
tration of the affairs of the League, of which com- 
mittee the president shall be ex-officio chairman. 
They shall make such rules, regulations and by- 
laws as they shall deem best for the management 
and control of the finances of the League and 
their general correspondence, and shall provide 
for the establishing of branch leagues and the 
reception of societies desiring to affiliate with the 
League, and shall make and publish such rules 
and regulations as may be necessary for the form- 
ation, government and control of branch leagues, 
and for the admission of such other organizations 



580 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

as may desire to affiliate with the League, and 
such council shall make such provision as may be 
in their judgment necessary for the formation of 
State organizations. 

" Section 10. The Central Council shall provide 
an equitable assessment of dues for each society, 
league or branch affiliating with this League, and 
such ordinary or extraordinary assessments as may 
become necessary by the exigencies of the situation. 

"Section n. All American, Irish and Irish- 
American societies, military, benevolent, social, 
literary, patriotic and charitable, may be enrolled 
as subordinate branches or affiliating societies of 
the National League, and they shall pay to the 
treasurer of the League a sum not less than one 
dollar per annum for every member in good 
standing in such league, branch or affiliating soci- 
ety, payment to be made quarterly. 

" The National Conventions of the League 
shall be composed of delegates duly elected by 
the various branches and societies affiliated with 
the League, and the basis of representation shall 
be as follows : One delegate for every one hun- 
dred members, and one delegate for societies of 
less than one hundred and more than fifty; but 
no society shall have more than two delegates. 

" No branch or affiliated society shall be enti- 
tled to representation that has failed or neglected 
to make its regular quarterly report and, paid its 
assessment up to the date of the convention." 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 5gl 

Hon. Alexander Sullivan, of Chicago, Illinois, 
was elected President; John J. Hynes, Esq., of 
Buffalo, New York, Secretary, and Rev. Dr. Chas. 
O'Reilly, of Detroit, Michigan, Treasurer of the 
new organization. Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, it should 
be stated, was selected for the responsible posi- 
tion of the Treasurer of the League by the cleri- 
cal delegates. When Colonel Boland nominated 
Mr. Sullivan for President, the mention of his 
name elicited enthusiastic applause. Before the 
vote was taken Mr. Sullivan refused to be a can- 
didate, but in spite of this action it was found 
upon the calling of the roll that he had received 
the all but unanimous vote of the convention. 
Upon being permitted to speak, after his election, 
he repeated his declination. Young at the bar, 
without income except as he earned it, he felt that 
he could not, in justice to the cause and to him- 
self, afford to devote his time to the arduous and 
continuous duties of such an important position. 
The convention, however, was not disposed to 
consider any man's private interests at such a 
time. A motion was unanimously carried to "lay 
his declination on the table." He remained firm 
in his refusal, however, and at length only yielded 
to the private and public entreaties of the leading- 
men in the convention, and after eloquent appeals 
delivered from the platform by Rev. T. J. Conaty, 
on behalf of the old Land League ; by Patrick 
Egfan and Thomas Brennan on behalf of Ireland ; 



582 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

by Mrs. Parnell for her son, and by James Red- 
path " in the name of America," Major John 
Byrne, of Cincinnati, Ohio, was elected Vice-Pres- 
ident, and the delegations from each State and 
Territory announced as their respective repre- 
sentatives in the National Council : California, 
Judge M. Cooney ; Connecticut, James Reynolds ; 
Colorado, J. J. O'Boyle ; Delaware, James A. 
Bourke ; Georgia, J. F. Armstrong ; Illinois, John 
J. Curran ; Indiana, D. J. Sullivan ; Iowa, M. V. 
Gannon ; Kentucky, Wm, M. Collins ; Louisiana, 
John Fitzpatrick ; Maryland, Rev. M. J. Brennan; 
Michigan, John C. Donnelly ; Massachusetts, Rev. 
P. A. McKenna; Minnesota, C. M. McCarthy; 
Missouri, Dr. Thomas O'Reilly; Maine, J. A. 
Gallagher ; Nevada, U. S. Senator James G. Fair ; 
Nebraska, P. J. Smith ; New Hampshire, John 
Hayes; New Jersey, William F. O'Leary ; New 
York, Dr. William B. Wallace ; Ohio, William J. 
Gleason ; Pennsylvania, Maurice F. Wilhere ; 
Rhode Island, John McElroy ; South Carolina, 
Hon. Michael F. Kennedy; Tennessee, C. I. 
McCarty ; Vermont, C. J. Wheeler; Virginia, 
Patrick McGovern ; Wisconsin, J. G. Donnelly; 
Arizona, Thomas Fitch; District of Columbia, 
Peter McCartney ; Canada, John P. W'helan. 

At the instance of Mr. E. Fitzwilliam, of Water- 
town, Mass., the convention adopted a resolution 
declaring that "the United Irish League of 
America hereby extends to the father of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 533 

Land League, Michael Davitt, incarcerated the 
third time in a British dungeon, the heartiest 
expressions of our unabated love, esteem and 
confidence, and send him this message of greet- 
ing, in this the hour of the triumph of the prin- 
ciples which he so wisely inaugurated in Irish- 
town." 

The formal declaration of the amalgamation or 
merging of the Land and Irish National Leagues 
was made by Rev. P. Cronin, of Buffalo, N. Y., 
who, by authority of the Conference Committee 
of Seven, of which he was a member, appointed 
on Wednesday, April 25, 1883, reported that "it 
was the committee's decision, in view of the unity 
and harmony of the new National League, the 
Land League would cease to exist as a separate 
organization." " It was not dead or dissolved," 
he added, " but endowed with a more vigorous 
life in the new National League which we have 
this day established." 

Miss Alice Gallagher, of the Anna Parnell 
Branch of St. Louis, Mo., presented on behalf 
of that organization a check for $850, " to be dis- 
tributed by Charles Stewart Parnell for the bene- 
fit of the destitute poor of Ireland." Miss Mary 
E. Callaghan, also of St. Louis, Mo., presented 
$500 for the same purpose. " The women of the 
League," said she, " propose to do what they can 
to keep the wolf from the door. Let the men 
keep the lion away." 



584 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Before the adjournment of the convention, Mr. 
John F. Kerr, of New Jersey, had a resolution 
adopted, pledging to Mr. Parnell and his trusty 
lieutenants, the hearty support of the delegates 
and of the Irish race in America. 

Of the very many telegrams and letters from 
all sections of the United States to the convention) 
congratulating it on its course, and sympathizing 
with its objects, a large number are worthy of 
reproduction here, especially those from distin- 
guished Americans. Congressman Cox, of New 
York (since United States Minister to Turkey), 
wrote : 

"Washington, D. C, April, 24, 1883. 

" Dear Sir : Philadelphia is a fitting place for 
your assemblage. It is full of revolutionary and 
constitutional memories. In those memories Ire- 
land has a large part. In Philadelphia that con- 
cordant League for Liberty was illustrated which 
made the great ' Declaration,' and after it was 
sealed with blood, crystallized the courageous 
effort and sagacious statesmanship of seven years 
by the ordination of our matchless Constitution. 
By unity our cause was won. 

"Amidst such associations Irishmen will find 
encouragement to harmony. Here they will find 
inspiration in the struggle to better the condition 
of their compatriots, to give autonomy to Ireland, 
or, as the inevitable tendency, aim and end of all 
humane and effective effort, to make Ireland free 
and independent. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 585 

"There is a close parallel between the circum- 
stances* which justified our independence and 
those which would justify the independence of 
Ireland. It is not possible for Ireland to have 
contentment and freedom under the British Mao-. 
Even with a local legislature and self-government 
of a mild type assured it is problematical. It is 
no more possible than it was for this country to 
remain under the British yoke with its commercial 
restrictions and insolence of office. As the spirit 
of Washington, of Jefferson, of Adams, and of 
Hancock, in the name of human nature, forbade 
our union with Great Britain, so the spirit of 
Wolfe Tone, of Robert Emmet, of Thomas Davis, 
and of Charles Stewart Parnell forbids the su- 
premacy of British rule over Ireland. 

"The commerce and manufactures of Ireland, 
not to speak of its farming interests, are decaying 
under the blight of bad government. It is said 
that there are 68,242 able-bodied men governing 
and keeping the peace, according to the refine- 
ment of British civilization, while there are but 
21,382 persons engaged in teaching. While 
three times as many persons are engaged in 
thus keeping the Green Isle ' to its propriety,' as 
are engaged in forming and disciplining its chil- 
dren by education, what else can be expected 
but anarchy and chaos ? Chronic starvation, 
constant evictions, uncertainty of land tenure, 
perpetual unrest, mocking of justice, and a stand- 



586 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ing army of spies, informers, police and soldiers 
— truly Ireland is die worst governed country in 
the world ! There is no peace to be found under 
such conditions. 

"Revolution is not to be justified for 'light and 
transient causes.' True. Are not these causes 
of sufficient gravity and of adequate duration? 
Is it said that a reasonable probability of success 
is necessary to justify a change of rule? True, 
and this is the problem about which the best 
judgment is necessary. No one can justify the 
attempt to destroy British rule in Ireland if the 
attempt will acid fresh fetters and additional 
misery. God help a people in such extremity. 
Whatever you may decide to be best, this agita- 
tion for liberty will go on. It is the order of 
nature, of reason, and of God. Faith in the 
final enfranchisement of Ireland will never die. 
Irishmen in other lands, and notably in this, are 
content, prosperous, open-handed, brave and gen- 
erous. They are faithful and self-contained in 
the land which they have adopted. Why should 
those of the same race be made exceptions in 
their own loved isle ? 

" Whatever may come out of the conflict so 
courageously waged by Parnell, Egan, and their 
associates, one thine mav be affirmed: that this 
country, as an asylum of freedom and free 
thought, bestows, with no stinted heart, its best 
sympathy upon the cause of the oppressed. If it 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 537 

become necessary in the progress of the contest, 
when questions of extradition, citizenship, bellig- 
erent right and nationality become involved, there 
are lessons for our guidance already taught us by 
Great Britain which- we have been very apt to 
learn ; lessons which a free people and a defiant 
Congress, recently reinforced by Celtic pluck and 
intelligence, will not willingly let die. 

" Trusting that harmony may prevail in your 
councils, that every Irish organism may be 
blended indissolubly into compact unity, so as to 
energize the entire Irish force, and that the cause 
you represent may be elevated to the highest 
plane of humanity, 

" I am very truly yours, etc., 

" S. S. Cox." 

Hon. Samuel J. Randall, the great Democratic 
protectionist apostle, a prominent and able mem- 
ber of Congress, and for several terms its honored 
Speaker, a gentleman to whom the Irish heart 
goes welling out in gratitude for his manly and 
determined stand on behalf of an oppressed 
people, wrote to the convention : 

" It, as Americans, we owe gratitude to any 
people on earth, it is to the Irish, for they were 
our friends during the Revolutionary War, the 
War of 181 2, and during our recent great civil 
strife, when England and nearly everybody else 
were against us. Besides, it is consonant with 



588 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

our political history to recognize and encourage 
all peoples seeking freedom and nationality, as in 
the instance of Greece and the South American 
Republics, and more recently in the case of Hun- 
gary, when Webster, as Secretary of State, spoke 
with a truth and courage which our representa- 
tives in our day seem to have forgotten. I wish 
you success in every honest effort in behalf of the 
liberty arid welfare of the Irish people." 

Rev. George W. Pepper, one of the most elo- 
quent and popular Methodist Episcopal clergy- 
men of Ohio, addressing the president of the 
convention, wrote : 

" I deeply and sincerely regret that I cannot be 
present with the friends of Ireland in their con- 
vention. Be assured that my earnest and warm- 
est sympathies are with you in every sensible 
effort to secure contentment, happiness and pros- 
perity to that beautiful land for whose indepen- 
dence Grattan plead and Emmet died. I was 
there eighteen months aeo, and I travelled over 
hill and dale, over mountain and bog, and every- 
where I saw laziness and aristocracy rolling in 
splendor, and honest poverty dying by starvation. 
Hunger and despotism were doing a wholesale 
business. In the County of Down, notorious for 
its bigotry and landlord supremacy, I saw hun- 
dreds of miserable huts, over which hunger had 
crept with deadly horror. In that very part 
where Toryism reigns rampant, and where the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 580 

British officials tell us there is happiness, I found 
destitution, suffering and death. One word ex- 
plains the cause — landlordism. I found two 
political parties — the party of the government 
embracing landlord spies, police, preachers paid 
by the Crown to pray for the Queen, snobs, par- 
venus, and the brutal aristocracy. The second 
party is that of the people, commanded by that 
splendid captain whose courage has never failed, 
and whose white plume, like that of Henry of 
Navarre, has ever flashed in front of battle. I 
mean Charles Stewart Parnell. I frankly and 
joyously confess that every impulse of my heart 
is with the oppressed many, and I am longing to 
hear the lion-roar of the people demanding in 
thunder tones the immediate and eternal exter- 
mination of landlordism, monarchy, bigotry and 
periodical famines from Ireland forever. Mr. 
Patrick Eean, that large-souled, wide-minded and 
patriotic Irishman, will tell the convention in the 
city of William Penn what he has already said in 
the presence of power and of tyranny, that to-day 
the fiorht is against landlordism, but to-morrow it 
will be for independence. Let the friends of Ire- 
land never despair, let there be no drooping, but 
let the leaders take up the mantle which martyred 
patriots have left us, and deem it no mean honor 
to perpetuate the noble trust bequeathed them by 
Emmet and Tone. Ireland has the support of 
the best part of the American population, the 



590 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

only exceptions are the tuft-hunters and the 
cowards who took refuse under the British flag 
during the late war. Thanks be unto Heaven, 
the cause of Ireland is advancing. Despite the 
powerful malignity of a despotic oligarchy, despite 
the vast and oppressive burdens of landlords, our 
country shall yet rise from her dark disasters, and 
the Catholic priest and Protestant minister will 
unite in writing upon her escutcheon, Resurgam, 
Resurgam, Resurgam — I shall rise again." 

From Fort Dodge, Iowa, came the telegram, 
sent by Michael Healy, Owen Conway, William 
Ryan, R. P. Furlong, and J. H. Ryan: 

" Greeting: You have the sympathy and support 
in your deliberations of ten thousand Irish- Ameri- 
cans of north-western Iowa political refugees, to 
be protected by the American flag forever." 

Chairman Timothy Foley and Secretary Daniel 
Sexton wired from Leadville, Colorado : 

"Irish citizens of Leadville send you greeting. 
Give our people the best advice and basis of 
action to abolish their sufferings, and the Dome 
City will heartily respond." 

After the convention had adjourned the new 
National Council met, Dr. William B. Wallace 
acting as chairman, and M. V. Gannon as secre- 
tary, and elected from its number the following 
working committee of seven : Rev. P. A. McKenna, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 591 

of Massachusetts; Dr. Wm. B. Wallace, of New 
York; James Reynolds, of Connecticut; M. V. 
Gannon, of Iowa; Judge J. G. Donnelly, of Wis- 
consin ; Col. John F. Armstrong, of Georgia, and 
U. S. Senator James G. Fair, of Nevada. It also 
adopted a resolution requesting every Irish society 
in the United States and Canada, willing to c6- 
operate with the new organization, to communicate 
with the national secretary. As Mr. John J. Hynes, 
the secretary, was a resident of Buffalo, and it was 
found necessary that the person holding that posi- 
tion should be in close communion with the presi- 
dent, Mr. Hynes resigned at the first meeting of 
the Committee of Seven held a few weeks subse- 
quently in Detroit, to allow the selection of a 
secretary who could make his head-quarters in 
Chicago. He was succeeded by Mr. Roger Walsh, 
who brought to the position his experience as a 
capable journalist and shorthand writer. 

HON. ALEXANDER SULLIVAN'S ADMINISTRATION. 

Heavy as was the burden laid upon the new 
president, he entered heartily upon the discharge 
of his duties. He had, largely, to create the 
policy of his administration. Circumstances had 
so changed that the chief task of his predeces- 
sors — the collection of funds to avert famine — 
was, happily, not the task which he had to face. 
The danger of famine was apparently over. He 

undertook a responsibility not less serious, but, as 
35 



592 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the world goes, much more difficult — the educa- 
tion of American opinion on the political rights 
of the Irish people. It is never difficult to pro- 
cure money to save human beings from starva- 
tion. The ghastly spectacle which had been pre- 
sented in Ireland during the years of famine had 
disappeared before the devotion of the exiled 
Irish race, reinforced by the substantial aid of 
American sympathy. The duty of the British 
Government in Ireland had been thus performed 
by America. A greater task remained — the re- 
covery of the legislative independence of the Irish 
people by the moral and material co-operation of 
the race in exile. 

Mr. Sullivan had laid out the route of Mr. Par- 
nell through the West on his visit in 1880 and 
1 88 1, and had accompanied him over a consider- 
able portion of it. He was familiar with Mr. 
Parnell's hopes, plans and calculations. Mr. Par- 
nell's original purpose, it will be remembered, in 
coming to this country, had not been to solicit 
alms for his suffering countrymen, but to submit 
to the people of America the claims, and expound 
the political condition and social misery of the 
Irish people. The famine, looming up suddenly, 
however, compelled him to completely alter his 
course. Now, in 1883, that the danger was past, 
the original purpose might easily be taken up 
a^ain. 

It was manifest on all hands that a struggle 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 593 

was approaching, for which money in large sums 
would be required for political purposes. It 
could not be expected to be forthcoming unless, 
meanwhile, opinion on this side of the water 
became so clear as to solidify American sympathy 
with the political aims of the Irish people. 
While it was comparatively easy to obtain money 
to avert famine, or to succor those who suffered 
from its effects, it was recognized that it would be 
difficult to obtain it to promote what even well- 
disposed Americans would call "foreign politics." 
The wise counsel of the Father of the Republic 
against "entangling alliances" has created in the 
American mind a conservative tradition against 
any form of what might seem American inter- 
ference in foreign affairs unless for clearly defined, 
legitimate, and humane purposes. Moreover, it 
was felt by Mr. Sullivan, that it would be indis- 
pensable for the success of the struggle in Ireland 
that the movement should have the solid and ear- 
nest sympathy of enlightened American public 
opinion. If, therefore, the alms era was happily 
over it was essential that the educating era should 
begin. 

Mr. Sullivan devoted almost his entire time to 
the carrying out of this idea. He delivered 
addresses in about forty of the principal cities, 
speaking in many of them several times, for he 
was generally invited to return, so well pleased 
were the promoters of the Irish cause with the 



594 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

effects of his speeches. He wrote continually 
for the press, was interviewed on almost innumer- 
able occasions, and furnished abundant materials 
for others to use in lectures or magazine articles. 
His travels covered fifteen States, and his own 
business was thus suffered to fall into neglect. 

One of the first objects to which he addressed 
himself was the dissipation of the prejudice that 
the Irish question is a "foreign question" in the 
United States. He boldly declared it "an Amer- 
ican question." In his first speech, after the 
Philadelphia Convention, delivered before an 
immense audience in Cooper Institute, New York, 
he demonstrated the accuracy of that designation. 
He cited Lord DufTerin, that vigilant servant of 
the British Empire, to prove that the Irish in 
America had sent, during the period between 
1848 and 1863, no less than ^13,000,000 to their 
suffering kindred at home. Moderately assuming 
that the annual remittances compelled by land- 
lord brutality, enforced by English law, had not 
increased (when he might with certainty have 
assumed that they had done so), he showed that 
up to the time he was speaking, not less than 
$175,000,000 had been extorted from labor in 
America to maintain landlordism in Ireland. He 
declared that by the instincts of nature, divinely 
planted, this colossal imposition would have to be 
borne by the Irish in America until landlordism in 
Ireland is abolished, for, no matter under what 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 595 

circumstances they might themselves live, what 
self-denial they might endure, the Irish in Amer- 
ica would not let their kin die of want in Ireland. 
To keep American earnings in America was 
assuredly "an American question." He recalled 
the aid sent from Ireland to the New England Col- 
onies after King Philip's War; and, in order to 
show that it is not food, but liberty, that Ireland 
needs to prevent famine, he reminded his generous 
American countrymen that the American ship 
which carried food into Oueenstown, in 1849, 
encountered three English ships carrying out of 
Ireland the abundant harvests which might have 
fed the people whose industry had produced them. 
He also recalled the debt of the Colonies and of 
the Republic to Ireland ; he recalled the forgotten 
pledge of Franklin, that, if the Irish aided the 
Americans in shaking off the tyranny of England, 
the Americans would aid them in the same duty. 
He cited a report made by a committee of the 
House of Commons, in which the statement was 
made that " more than half of the continental 
army who won American independence was 
Irish." By these and other arguments and cita- 
tions equally practical, he enlightened that class 
of the American people, who opposed political 
agitation for Ireland on the' plausible ground tnat 
the Irish question is a " foreign " one. He conclu- 
sively established in the intelligent and reflecting 
mind of America that it is an American question, 



596 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and his facts and logic supplied a host of writers 
and orators with effectual material for its success- 
ful advancement. 

DISCUSSING THE EMIGRATION QUESTION. 

It was during Mr. Sullivan's presidency that 
an important event occurred in the history of the 
international relations of Great Britain and the 
United States. One of the most frightful and 
infamous of the evils of English misrule in Ire- 
land has been the enforced emigration of the 
Irish people. The heartlessness of a govern- 
ment, driving from their own land, uncharged 
with crime or misdemeanor, tens of thousands 
of penniless people, to encounter the misery and 
hardships of a new world, a severe climate and 
keen competition in all fields of employment — a 
competition for which they were almost utterly 
unprepared — has been practised by English rulers 
in Ireland since the days of the " Great Famine." 
At first it took the form of clearances of " noble- 
men's " estates. " It is stated that the Earl of 
Bessborough," so ran the Tipperary Vindicator 
one day in 1848, "is about sending some hun- 
dreds of the population of his estates to America 
this season. We do not know how true this 
statement is, but as the rumor prevails, we deem 
it our duty to mention it." What was then com- 
paratively rare became a common occurrence 
later. The example set by the landlords was 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 597 

taken up by "the Government." The 'helpless 
victims were crowded into the poor-houses, and 
as soon as the excess over the accommodations 
furnished a seeming warrant, they were forcibly 
expatriated. From those days to ours protest 
after protest went up against this barbarity, but 
the falsehood of " over-population " was kept up, 
and the people continued to be driven out ol 
their native land. The National party resorted 
to every device to arrest this arterial bleeding ; 
they employed all available resources to stop it, 
but no heed was paid to their appeals. Mr. Sul- 
livan devised a way by which the enforced emigra- 
tion was effectually stopped. 

The Philadelphia Convention, on the motion 
of the gallant Col. O' Meagher Condon, repeated 
the frequent protests of the Irish people, of their 
bishops, and of their leaders in Parliament, and 
instructed President Sullivan to bring the matter 
to the attention of the Chief Executive of the 
United States. Mr. Sullivan at once associated 
with himself a number of prominent gentlemen 
who were eminently fitted to discuss the " com- 
pulsory emigration," or rather extermination, 
question in its various aspects. These were: 
John O'Byrne, Cincinnati, Ohio; Eugene Kelly, 
James Lynch and Henry Hoguet, of the Irish 
Emigration Society, New York ; William B. 
Wallace, M. D., New York; John Rooney, 
Brooklyn, N. Y. ; John C. McGuire, Brooklyn, 



598 GLADSTONE— PARNKLL. 

N. Y. ; James Reynolds, New Haven, Conn. ; 
Bernard Callaghan, Chicago, 111. ; John F. Arm- 
strong, Augusta, Ga. ; Michael Doyle, Savannah, 
Ga. ; Edward Johnson, M. D., Watertown, Wis. ; 
Hugh McCaffrey, Philadelphia, Pa.; William Mul- 
hern, Augusta, Ga. ; T. R. Pitz, Boston, Mass. ; 
John Fitzgerald, Lincoln, Neb. ; John Fahy, 
Rochester, N. Y. ; P. Smith, Cleveland, Ohio ; 
John Roach, Chester, Pennsylvania; and O. A. 
White, M. D., New York. Accompanied by 
them Mr. Sullivan met Hon. Chester A. Arthur, 
President of the United States, by appointment, 
in the library of the Executive Mansion, at Wash- 
ington, D. C. It was aptly remarked at the time 
that " Mr. Sullivan used his opportunity to discuss 
the entire matter at issue in the hearing of the 
entire American people." The correspondents 
of the leading newspapers of the country were 
there, and within an hour after the interview had 
wired his speech to their respective journals. 
The address he made was universally printed, 
and caused an international sensation. The rich- 
ness of its economic and statistical material insured 
its being filed in newspaper offices as an enduring 
and authentic source of information. 

At the close of his remarks Mr. Sullivan intro- 
duced Mr. H. L. Hoguet, President of the Emi- 
grant Industrial Savings' Association of New 
York, who said that the inmates of poor-houses, 
and dependents who have been receiving out- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 599 

door relief in Ireland, have been aided by the 
British Government to emigrate to this country. 
"It is," he continued, " a matter of general knowl- 
edge that Parliament has voted ^100,000 to serve 
that purpose, and that agents of the British Gov- 
ernment have come to this country to perfect 
arrangements for the reception of those aided 
emigrants. Application was made by Major 
Gaskell to the Immigration Society at New York 
for that purpose, and the society declined to have 
anything to do with such business ; but he pro- 
ceeded to Boston, where he met better success. 
The 'aided emigrants' consist largely of people 
unable to work, old women and young children. 
They have been aided to the extent of having 
their passage paid, and are given a miserable 
pittance of ten shillings upon their arrival here 
to enable them to go to their friends. Of course 
that sum is entirely inadequate, and the conse- 
quence has been that they were compelled to 
seek aid in New York, Boston, and elsewhere. 
If regular affidavits in regard to these facts are 
required, they can be furnished. We respect- 
fully request you to use your influence to prevent 
the recurrence of this state of things. It is to the 
interest of American municipalities to have the 
progress of this aided emigration scheme stopped. 
• "At the proper time," he concluded, "you will, 
doubtless, make appropriate recommendations 
to Congress on this subject." 



600 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

He was followed by Mr. James Lynch, of New 
York, President of the Irish Emigration Society, 
who read an extract from a letter on " aided emi- 
gration." He asserted that the charge of main- 
taining the poor of Ireland falls upon the Poor-law 
Guardians, a body who, at a meeting at Limerick, 
" resolved that no more aid could be given to 
these emigrants." He said that such " aided 
emigration," if not stopped, will result in the 
shipping of paupers from all the poor-houses in 
Ireland. Many of this class of emigrants, after 
their arrival here, have applied to be sent back to 
Ireland. As an instance of the able-bodied paupers 
sent out here, he cited the recent arrival of seven- 
teen emigrants, only Jive of whom were able to 
work. 

Mr. James Reynolds, of New Haven, Conn., 
handed to President Arthur a letter of introduc- 
tion from ex-Governor Bigelow of Connecticut, 
and said that eighteen " forced " or " aided emi- 
grants " were now in New Haven in destitute cir- 
cumstances, and only five of them were able to 
work. Mr. Reynolds gave those five temporary 
employment, so as to enable them to bridge over 
present difficulties, and to prevent them from 
becoming American paupers. He urged that 
the citizens of every municipality and community 
in America have as much interest, financially and 
otherwise, in putting a stop to this system of im- 
migration as the Irish-American has. Everybody, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 601 

he contended, looks upon this thing as an iniquity 
that should not be tolerated by the American 
people. 

Mr. Patrick Smith, of Cleveland, Ohio, spoke 
of cases within his own personal experience which 
compelled his fellow-citizens " to insist that he 
should come here and lay the matter before the 
President, so that the trouble might be remedied." 
"As an evidence of the utter helplessness of many 
of these unfortunate people in a strange land," 
added Mr. Smith, " I recall the recent arrival in 
Cleveland of seventy-three ' aided emigrants,' and 
that entire party had only two dollars in their 
possession." 

After thanking the delegation for their thought- 
ful courtesy in waiting on him and complimenting 
them on the cogent and concise manner in which 
they had presented the case of " enforced emigra- 
tion," President Arthur said : "The subject will re- 
ceive my careful consideration. It has already been 
under consideration by the Secretary of State. 
Correspondence in regard to it has been had 
with our diplomatic and consular representatives, 
and an investigation into the facts is now beina- 
made by them. It is, of course, proper that this 
Government should ascertain whether any nation 
with which it holds amicable relations is violating 
any obligation of international friendship before 
calling attention to any such matter. It is well 
to follow the old motto, ' Be sure you are right, 
and then oo ahead.' " 

o 



602 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Mr. Sullivan suggested that .it would be more 
satisfactory to the delegation and to those whom 
it represented, if the investigations and reports 
were made by officials on this side of the Atlantic. 

President Arthur: "The law now provides 
that the officers of the Treasury shall examine 
into the condition of the passengers arriving as 
immigrants at any port of the United States, and 
if there should be found any convict, lunatic, idiot, 
or any person unable to take care of himself with 
out becoming a public charge, they shall report the 
same in writing to the collector of such port, and 
such person shall not be permitted to land." 

Mr. Bernard- Callaghan, of Chicago, 111.: "It is 
manifest, from the statement made by Mr. Rey- 
nolds, that some of those whose immigration is 
prohibited by the statute from which you have 
quoted, Mr. President, are already landed; namely, 
those who are likely to become a public charge." 

President Arthur ended the interview with the 
remark that " the investigation will be thorough 
and exhaustive on this side of the Atlantic and on 
the other, and in the meantime the law will be 
strictly enforced." 

The effect of that memorable interview — one 
of the most important chapters in the history of 
the great Irish movement in the United States — . 
was felt on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Mr. 
Parnell pronounced it "the best slap England had 
had from America since the War of 1812." 





!w...<^ 




THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 

Mr. Davitt, in a powerful speech in Dublin, 
thanked Alexander Sullivan "in the name oi the 
Irish people." The press of Ireland rejoiced over 
the check at last imposed on die detestable policy 
of extermination. President Arthur kept his 
promise that the statute should be applied. A 
number of test cases were made as soon as 
practicable, and, although the Irish Chief Secre- 
tary, Trevelyan, had himself smilingly acquiesced 
in the deportation of the unfortunate inmates of 
poor-houses into compulsory exile in the same 
year, the officials of those poor-houses were 
instructed from the Castle at Dublin that "the 
business would have to be stopped." 

As the phrase "The Castle" was little under- 
stood here, Mr. Sullivan requested Mr. T. P. Gill, 
now M. P., then residing in this country, to pre- 
pare a pamphlet to be entitled " What is Castle 
Government?" and answer the question com- 
pletely. Mr. Gill complied with the request with 
the ability which marks all his work, and the 
pamphlet was widely read, doing even-where 
good work in clearing away misapprehensions 
and supplying facts to take their place. 

IRISH-AMERICAN LEADERS. 

The men who have taken a leading part in the 
Irish movement in this country have, as a rule, 
"made their mark" on the times and in the com- 



606 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

munities in which they lived, as men of integrity 
and ability. Prominent among them is stalwart 
John Frederick Finerty, of Chicago, 111., who was 
born in Gal way, Ireland, on Sept. 10, 1846. His 
father was Michael Joseph Finerty, a staunch 
" Young Irelander," who was editor of the Gal- 
way Vindicator from 1841 to 1848, when he died. 
John was adopted by a childless uncle, and was 
mainly educated by private tuition. His early 
life was spent about equally in the Counties of 
Gal way and Tipperary. In the latter county he 
became a parishoner of the famous Father John 
Kenyon, the bosom friend of John Mitchel. Father 
Kenyon took a great interest in young Finerty, 
and delighted to discourse with him on the men 
and the transactions of 1848. The patriot priest 
threw his fine library open to John F., who there 
revelled to his heart's content in the fascinating 
" Rebel " literature of the United Irishmen and 
the Young Irelanders. In December, 1862, he be- 
came a member of the Nenagh Branch of the 
National Brotherhood of St. Patrick, and delivered 
his first public speech on that occasion. His 
next utterance, which was favorably commented 
upon by Smith O'Brien and lohn Martin, was at 
a banquet given at Nenagh, at which Father Ken- 
yon presided, on March 17, 1863. On Aug. 15, 
1863, he addressed a mass meeting on the sum- 
mit of Slievenamon, in company with the late 
Charles J. Kickham, who was chairman, Peter 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 607 

E. Gill, of the Tipperary Advocate, and others. 
The sentiments uttered by him at that meeting 
called forth angry comments in the London Times 
and Standard, the Dublin Daily Express, and 
other Tory and Whig organs. Punch made his 
speech the subject of an epigram. While return- 
ing from the Slievenamon meeting, on Aug. 16, 
1863, Finerty was sworn a member of the Irish 
Revolutionary Brotherhood by the late James 
Cody, of Callan, County Kilkenny, whom he had 
met on Meagher's Rock. In October, 1863, he 
addressed, in company with some others, a mass 
meeting at Ormond Stile, a famous " pass " in the 
Slieve Bloom mountains, through which many an 
Irish chief and clan, in ancient times, marched to 
victory or death. Young as he was — a mere boy 
in years — Finerty had now become an object of 
dislike to the neighboring landlords, with whom 
his uncle did business. They made false repre- 
sentations about him to the Castle Government, 
and his relatives were greatly annoyed on his 
account. Not wishing to injure his uncle, and 
disgusted with the petty malignity of the English 
" shoneen " garrison, he determined to go to 
America, and there fit himself for what he be- 
lieved would be a war for Irish liberation. In 
New York he met the late John O'Mahony, 
who gave him good advice and encouragement. 
He became a member of the Ninety-ninth New 
York Militia, and when the regiment volunteered 



008 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

for the United States' service, he went with the 
command, and served until it was mustered out. 
Soon afterward he moved west and made Chicago 
his head-quarters. He was a delegate to the Cin- 
cinnati and Philadelphia Fenian Conventions 
held in 1865. When the Roberts-Sweeney, or 
Canadian Invasion, wings of the Fenian Brother- 
hood seceded from O'Mahony, Finerty, although 
he held- the latter in high respect, sided w T ith 
Roberts, because he believed it was much easier 
to annoy England in her American Provinces 
than in Ireland. He became a member of the 
PvIacManus Guards' Company of theChicago Feni- 
an regiment, and was selected as an aide-de-camp 
by the late Gen. W. F. Lynch, who had .command 
of the Illinois Brigade in the Canadian Invasion 
of 1866. That raid resulted, as is well known, 
in Col. John O'Neill's brilliant victories at Ridge- 
way and Fort Erie, but the interference of the 
American Government prevented reinforcements 
from crossing to his aid, and he was finally com- 
pelled to retreat across the Niagara river to the 
American side. When John O'Neill became 
President of the American Fenian Brotherhood, 
he persuaded Finerty to act as an organizer and 
to enlist men for a new raid on Canada. This, 
in connection with journalism, he did for a year 
or two, but finally, owing to some difference on 
policy with O'Neill, he resigned, and became per- 
manently connected with the Chicago press. As 



The great irish struggle. 609 

correspondent for the Chicago Republican he 
witnessed O'Neill's lamentable failure on the 
Malone, N. Y., and St. Albans, Vt., frontiers, in 
May, 1870, and, when all the leaders were arrested 
or had disappeared, he got Gen. H. J. Hunt, com- 
manding the United States troops, and "Gen. 
Quinley, U. S. Marshal for Northern New York, 
to induce the State Government to send the dis- 
appointed and digusted Fenian soldiers to their 
homes. 

During the succeeding five years Mr. Finerty 
devoted himself strictly to journalism, and was 
mostly employed by the Chicago Tribune and the 
Evening Post. In the winter of 1875 he became 
a member of the Chicago Times staff, and, in the 
capacity of war correspondent for the paper, ac- 
companied Gen. Crook's Big Horn and Yellow- 
stone Expedition against the hostile Sioux and 
Cheyenne Indians, in the spring of 1876. That 
campaign, during which the troops had many 
severe conflicts with the Indians, and in which 
Gen. Custer and his command lost their lives, 
lasted six months, and was marked by tragedies 
and privations almost unparalleled in Indian war- 
fare. The famous " Sibley scout " also occurred 
during that campaign. Finerty was the only cor- 
respondent who accompanied Sibley, and his ac- 
count of the affair was copied in almost every 
paper of that time. 

In 1877 Mr. Finerty wrote up for the Chicago 

36 



610 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Times the Pittsburg riots, and made a tour of the 
Rio Grande frontier to ascertain the causes of the 
border troubles with Mexico. He also wrote up 
Louisiana politics, and particularly the Nichols- 
Packard gubernatorial quarrel during the early 
portion of the year. In 1878-9 he accompanied 
the American Commercial Expedition to Mexico, 
and made an almost complete tour of that repub- 
lic, returning overland, by way of Queretaro, 
Zacatecas, Chihuahua, and Paso del Norte to the 
United States. He reached Chicago late in April, 
and early in May he was detailed to make a tour 
of the Indian Territory and write up the " boom- 
ers' " invasion. In June, he accompanied a scien- 
tific expedition to the Bad Lands of Dakota, and, 
in July, he joined Gen. Nelson A. Miles' expedi- 
tion against Sitting Bull at Fort Peck, M. T. He 
witnessed the last battle, on Milk river, between 
that savage chief and the United States soldiers, 
on July 17, 1879. He visited Sitting Bull's camp 
at Woody Mountains, N. W. T., soon afterward 
and sent an account of his experience to the Times. 
In October of the same year, he accompanied 
Gen. Merritt on his Ute compaign, which lasted 
late into the season. In the fall of 1880 he made 
a complete journalistic tour of the Southern 
States, and became the Times' editorial correspond- 
ent at Washington during the sessions of the 
Forty-sixth Congress. In May, 1881, he was de- 
tailed by the Chicago Times to write up the Cana- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 611 

dian and Northern Pacific railroads, which were then 
very far from completion. He reached the Pacific 
coast, via the Northern Pacific route in August, 
havine travelled several hundred miles on horse- 
back, through an unbroken wilderness, with a 
single guide or packer. After writing up the re- 
sources of Washington Territory, Oregon, and 
Vancouver's Island, he proceeded to San Fran- 
cisco, and from there was ordered to join Gen. E. 
A. Carr in his campaign against the Apache 
Indians in Arizona. At the close of that campaign 
he returned to Chicago, and, having conferred 
with some of the leading Irishmen of that city, 
proceeded to New York and Boston for the pur- 
pose of organizing the first great Irish National 
Convention of all the Irish societies of the United 
States in aid of Parnell and his friends, who were 
then in prison. After some difficulty Mr. Finerty 
succeeded in having the call for the convention 
signed by Messrs. Patrick Ford, of New York ; P. 
A. Collins and John Boyle O'Reilly, of Boston; 
and Messrs. T. P. O'Connor and T. M. Healy, 
M. Ps., and the Rev. Eugene Sheehy, of Lim- 
erick; all of whom were then in America. The 
result was the magnificent convention which 
assembled at McCormick's Hall, Chicago, on Nov. 
29th and 30th, and Dec. ist, 1881. From it 
resulted that splendid fund of $250,000, afterwards 
swelled to $500,000, which placed the old Irish 
Land League financially on its feet. In January, 



612 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

1882, Mr. Finerty established The Citizen, a 
weekly paper devoted to Irish interests, which he 
still edits. In 1882-3 he inaugurated the Parnell 
Indemnity Fund, which afterwards became so suc- 
cessful in both Ireland and America. After the 
appearance of Cardinal Simeoni's circular de- 
nouncing the Parnell Fund, Finerty wrote an edi- 
torial, headed " Boycott the Pope," which produced 
quite a sensation in Rome as well as in the United 
States and Ireland. Yet his paper did not suffer 
by it as the people were indignant at England's 
repeated and shameless interference against Ire- 
land at the Vatican. 

Mr. Finerty was elected to the Forty-eighth 
Congress, from the Second District of Illinois, in 
Nov., 1882. He went in as an Independent, on 
broad American principles, including protection 
to home industries, the reconstruction of the navy, 
the extension of commerce, etc., and spoke ably 
on those subjects in the House of Representatives. 
He fell out with the Democrats, toward whom he 
had a leaning, on the question of Free Trade, 
and, after Cleveland's nomination in 1884, he 
espoused the cause of James G. Blaine. This led 
to Mr. Finerty's defeat, by foul means, in his dis- 
trict. He has not since sought re-election to 
Congress. 

He has been twice married and has two chil- 
dren surviving. In Irish politics. Mr. Finerty, 
although a staunch supporter of Parnell, is what 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 615 

is generally called "an extremist" — that is, he be- 
longs to "the extreme left" — and believes that 
anything done to injure or annoy England by 
Irishmen is perfectly justifiable. He came into 
conflict with Michael Davitt at the latest National 
League Convention in Chicago, and since that 
time has declared himself sceptical of success 
against England by unaided " moral force." He, 
however, has thrown no obstacle in the way of 
the Parnell movement, and is with it "as far as it 
goes," although he is unalterably a separatist, or 
Mitch el lite, in principle. 

Michael J. Redding, of Baltimore, Maryland, 
was born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, July 
14, 1853. His parents were natives of the 
County Clare, but removed to Limerick in 1847. 
At the age of five years young Redding was 
placed in a private school, where he remained 
until 1864, when the family came to this country, 
settling in Baltimore. For several years he at- 
tended the Christian Brothers' school, connected 
with St. Peter's Parish, and was afterward ap- 
prenticed to a carpenter. He spent twelve years 
at this business, utilizing his spare time for study, 
often remaining at his books until midnight. In 
1880 he became identified with the Land League 
movement, using all means available to make it a 
success in Baltimore. Mr. Redding was at the 
head of the movement to get Henry George to 
lecture to the people of Baltimore, after his tour 



616 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

through Ireland, that they might hear from an 
unbiased American the true condition" of affairs in 
the mother-country. He has been a delegate to 
all the National League Conventions, and was in- 
strumental in getting the Knights of St. Ignatius, 
of which he is the Chief Knight, to give, for the 
benefit of the Parliamentary Fund, what proved 
to be one of the most successful entertainments 
ever held in Baltimore. He is strictly temperate 
in all his habits, and ever on the alert to turn 
everything he can to benefit his native land, and 
free her from the yoke of thraldom. 

Mr. Redding married Miss Ella F. Flaherty, 
who was born in Albany, New York, of Irish 
parents, and is blessed with five children, in whom 
he is inculcating the spirit of Irish nationality. 

Miles M. O'Brien, one of the most enterprising 
and popular business men of New York, was 
born at New Castle West, County Limerick, 
Ireland, in 1846. His father, Dr. Miles O'Brien, 
was a "Forty-eight" man, and his sister, during 
the "Forty-eight" movement, wrote several 
stirring poems under the nom-de-plume of 
"Josephine," for the Munster Neivs, for which 
she was threatened with arrest, because of the 
patriotic sentiments they contained. Mr. O'Brien 
came to America in 1864, and has been identified 
with every Irish patriotic organization of note since 
1865. He was treasurer of the fund raised in 
New York to defray the expenses of the Tipperary 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (517 

election of a celebrated Irish "felon," then in an 
English prison, to represent Tipperary in an 
English Parliament. The fund, amounting to 
$2,500, he forwarded to that sterling patriot, 
the late Charles J. Kickham. Mr. O'Brien was 
selected by the Irish Nationalists of the West to 
take charge of and forward to Congress appeals 
from all over the United States, asking the inter- 
cession of the American Government in behalf of 
Captain Edward O'Meagher Condon, who, at 
the time, was serving a sentence in England for 
his connection with the rescue of the Manchester 
Martyrs. Petitions from nearly every State in 
the Union, containing the names of over 300,000 
citizens, were forwarded, and aided materially in 
the release of Condon. Miles was one of the 
organizers of Parnell Branch, No. 1, formed at 
the Fifth Avenue Hotel, New York. In organiz- 
ing this branch, he was assisted by the Misses 
Fannie and Annie Parnell, and from it have 
sprung the many branches now in New York, 
which have done so much good for the national 
cause. 

Mr. O'Brien was one of the original committee 
of seven to call the meeting at the Hoffman 
House, New York, when the Irish Parliamentary 
Fund was started. He was elected secretary of 
the committee, and the contributions at the first 
meeting amounted to upwards of $10,000. Since 
that time the collections of the committee have 



618 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

amounted to over $150,000, at which figures the 
fund closed. While Mr. O'Brien has taken such 
an active part in the interest of Irish freedom, he 
has never been identified with any American 
political organization. He was a prominent 
figure at every convention of the Land League, 
and at the famous Philadelphia Convention fought 
hard in conjunction with Father Thomas J. Conaty, 
of Massachusetts, and Major John Byrne, of Ohio, 
to keep the Land League intact and, as he then 
fearlessly and frankly declared, "free from all en- 
tangling alliances." 

Col. W. P. Rend, of Chicago, Illinois, whom 
one of the leading journals of that go-ahead city 
holds up to its young commercial men as an ex- 
ample of a successful and honorable career, was 
born near Longford, County Leitrim, Ireland, in 
1840. When William was only seven years old 
his father, Ambrose Rend, emigrated to America 
and settled in Lowell, Mass., where the young 
lad's education was begun. After graduating at 
the local high school he began teaching, first at 
home, then in New Jersey, and finally in the 
South. All this time he had been preparing for 
a collegiate course, but was doomed to disappoint- 
ment, for at this time the Civil War broke out. 
He was just twenty-one years of age when he en- 
listed in the Fourteenth New York Regiment. 
He was engaged in eleven general battles. When 
he was mustered out of service he moved to 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 619 

Chicago with less than twenty dollars in his 
pocket and looked about for something to do. 
He immediately joined a surveying party, having 
a knowledge of civil engineering, and with the 
surveyors helped to locate a railroad from Madi- 
son to Winona. He returned to Chicago, intend- 
ing to remain only a short time, and then join 
another surveying party, but circumstances altered 
his plans. He entered the service of the Chicago 
& Northwestern Railroad Company as a clerk, 
and was promoted rapidly until he became foreman 
of the railroad shops. While in this position Mr. 
Rend and the cashier of the company started a 
line of transportation wagons for hauling freight 
from depots on contract. This enterprise, he and 
his partner, Edwin Walker, are still connected 
with. He speedily built up the largest individual 
coal trade in the West. He is owner of three 
mines, -and with Edwin Walker, one of the oldest 
and most highly respected members of the Chicago 
bar, owns three other mines in Pennsylvania and 
Ohio. He is also the principal owner of the roll- 
ing-stock of the firm, some 1,200 private cars. 
The firm gives employment to 1,500 men, and 
handles annually 700,000 tons of their own mine 
products, in addition to selling large quantities of 
anthracite coal. During the troubles between the 
miners in the Hocking Valley and their employers, 
two years ago, Colonel Rend took sides with the 
men, and, as a consequence, found arrayed against 



(320 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

him forty coal operators, backed by certain rail- 
roads. The Hocking Valley Railroad Company, 
die principal railroad entering the field, failing to 
join with the other operators against the men, 
refused him cars, advanced his rates of freight, 
and placed such restrictions on his business as it 
was thought would make it impossible for him to 
operate his mines. He resolutely met the attack, 
however, and entered in the federal courts an 
appeal for a mandatory injunction, compelling his 
adversaries to furnish him cars and transportation 
at the usual terms. 

The subject of this sketch attributes the greater 
part of his good fortune to the faithful observance 
of the temperance pledge which he took from 
Father Matthew when eight years of age. It was 
at Colonel Rend's suggestion that Bishop Ireland, 
of St. Paul, sent the eloquent Father Cotter to 
preach a temperance crusade through Ohio and 
Indiana, the result of which was that 1 7,000 names 
were added to the total abstinence pledge in 
three months. The entire expenses of that cru- 
sade were paid by Colonel Rend. In Irish affairs 
he has always shown himself desirous of advanc- 
ing the cause of his native land. In 1865 he mar- 
ried Miss Elizabeth Barry, an amiable and accom- 
plished lady. They have had a family of eleven 
children, of whom five are now alive. 

The first time that I met Michael V. Gannon, 
the eloquent District Attorney of Davenport. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGI E. t>21 

Iowa, I was impressed with his earnestness, the 
clearness with which he expressed his views, and 
his open, sunny countenance. Tall and erect in 
figure, with black hair and eyes, Mr. Gannon is a 
man of striking personal appearance. Like many 
leading Irish-Americans, he is what is usually 
termed a self-made man. He was born in Dub- 
lin, Ireland, on February 14, 1846. He lived for 
sixteen years in the County Westmeath, attend- 
ing the best schools that the neighborhood af- 
forded, and emigrated to America when he was 
twenty years old. He first settled in Rock Island, 
Illinois, where some of his friends had gone before 
him, and, being totally without means, earned a 
livelihood by teaching school. He taught there 
for one year, and then went to Iowa, where he 
pursued the same occupation. While he was en- 
gaged in teaching he spent his leisure time in 
studying law, and after a year spent in Iowa he 
returned to Rock Island, where he continued his 
legal studies with P. T. McElherne, now a well- 
known lawyer in Chicago. After finishing his 
legal education he was admitted to the bar, but 
did not at once enter into active practice, prefer- 
ring to spend another year in teaching. Mr. 
Gannon then removed to Davenport, of which 
city he was Alderman in 1S77 and 1878, and in 
the latter year opened a law office, taking into 
partnership the scholarly A. P. McGuirk. In the 
same year Mr. Gannon was tendered the Demo- 



622 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

cratic nomination for Clerk of the Supreme Court, 
but declined it. He was in the same year nomi- 
nated by the Democrats of the Seventh Judicial 
District for District Attorney. This nomination 
he accepted, but was defeated at the polls. In 
1882 he was tendered the nomination for the 
same office, accepted, and, although he lived in a 
Republican district, he was elected over his 
former competitor by a very flattering majority 
of 4,364 votes. 

He received the unanimous nomination of the 
Democratic party for Attorney-General in 1884, 
but was defeated with the rest of the Democratic 
State ticket. 

After the Buffalo Convention Mr. Gannon, in 
conjunction with Hon. M. H. King, of Des 
Moines, Iowa, organized the Iowa State League, 
and was elected its first President, a position which 
he held until the middle of 1886, when he resigned. 
He was also Chairman of the National Executive 
Committee from the close of the Philadelphia 
Convention until 1886. 

He is an orator of singular force and power, a 
ready talker on almost any topic, and in private 
conversation entertaining and agreeable, with all 
the wit that is inherent in an Irishman. Mr. Gan- 
non has been married twice, his second wife dying 
on November 9, 1884. He is the father of six 
children, five girls and one boy, the latter, four 
years of age, being named after Mr. Gannon's 
beau ideal of an Irish patriot, John Dillon. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 623 

Another self-made man, whose words in the 
councils of the Irish race have always been lis- 
tened to with respect, and whose business enter- 
prise has been rewarded with an abundant pros- 
perity, is Patrick Martin, of Baltimore, Maryland. 
He was born in the County Mayo, Ireland, on 
March 16, 1846. His family removed to England 
in 1849, remaining there until 1855, when they 
removed to America, arriving in Baltimore in 
June of that year. When quite a lad he went to 
work in a factory, to assist his family in earning a 
livelihood. At the age of seventeen years he 
began life's battle in earnest, and for a time was 
employed in different public works. For some time 
also he acted as porter in a store, and through his 
earnest labor and strict attention to business he 
was advanced to the position of salesman. By 
economy and perseverance he succeeded in ac- 
cumulating a small amount of money, and in Jan- 
uary, 1873, he started in the wholesale liquor 
business in company with Bartholomew McAn- 
drews. 

In business Mr. Martin has been very success- 
ful, and has secured for himself a comfortable 
home and the old homestead at Elkridee Land- 
ing, where his aged mother still resides. Since 
boyhood he has taken a great interest in the af- 
fairs of the land of his birth, and he has for a 
number of years been closely identified with Irish 
organizations. He was an active worker in the 



624 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Irish National League Convention in Boston, in 
1884, and was there elected as the Maryland 
State Delegate of the League. He also attended 
the convention in Chicago in August, 1886, and 
was elected Third Vice-President of the National 
League. On September 1 1, 1886, after his return 
from the Chicago Convention, Mr. Martin was 
presented with a handsome gold watch and chain 
by a committee representing the Irish-American 
citizens of Baltimore. 

Among the most gifted of the many eminent 
clergymen in this country who have espoused the 
cause of Ireland is the Rev. George Charles 
Betts, of Louisville, Kentucky. He was born in 
Dublin, Ireland, July 18, 1840. His early life was 
spent in the County Donegal, where he received 
his preliminary education, which was completed in 
Dublin and in Belfast — the Northern Athens. 
He came to America in 1861, and studied for the 
ministry, being ordained in Nebraska in 1865. 
He remained in Omaha, as rector of a parish, 
until 1872, when he went to Kansas City, where 
he was also in charge of a large parish until 1876, 
when he was transferred to St. Louis. He re- 
mained in charge here until the early part of 
1886, when he assumed charge of Grace Protes- 
tant Episcopal Church at Louisville, Kentucky, 
where he now is. Mr. Betts is the editor of 
The Church Militant, and is known as an ad- 
vanced churchman. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 625 

He has been engaged, heart and soul, in the 
cause of Ireland since 1868, lecturing in her be- 
half in almost every large city and in hundreds 
of small ones in the United States. Wherever he 
went his words bore good fruit. He has organ- 
ized many clubs or societies in nearly every State 
and Territory of the Union, all of them having for 
their object the promotion of Irish independence. 
Some of these societies are " beneficial " — that is, 
they pay to members and their families sick and 
burial benefits — and one of them, at least, is very 
powerful both in its widespread influence, the 
number of its members, and the spirit of unity 
which pervades its ranks. Mr. Betts was Chairman 
of the first National Convention, and has been adel- 
egate and served on the most important commit- 
tees of every National Convention since that time. 
Unfaltering in his devotion to the cause of Irish 
liberty, he has at all times freely and frankly ex- 
pressed his belief in its ultimate success. 

Another gifted and patriotic clergyman, a famil- 
iar and welcome figure at the meetings of the 
branches and conventions of the National League, 
is the Rev. P. A. McKenna, of Marlboro', Mass. 
He was born in Boston, Mass., in the latter part 
of 1847. He received his preliminary education 
in the public schools of his native city. In 1862 
he entered the Holy Cross College at Worcester 
Mass., from which institution he graduated with 
first honors, in 1867, with the degree of A. B., 



626 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

and later secured the degree of A. M. In the 
same year he went to Paris and entered the 
Seminary of St. Sulpice, where he studied in the 
theological course until 1870, when he was 
ordained in Bossuet's age-crowned Cathedral, 
at Meaux. Since his ordination, both as curate 
and pastor, Father McKenna has been settled in 
the same district, Marlboro', in Massachusetts. 
He was, for a number of years, pastor of a church 
in the adjoining town of Hudson, and is now 
pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion at Marlboro', to which he was promoted in 
March, 1886. Father McKenna was the only 
priest present from Massachusetts when the 
first convention of the old Land League was held 
in Trenor Hall, New York. He has been identi- 
fied with the cause of Irish liberty since that time, 
and intends to fight for it until the Promised Land 
of Ireland's territorial, social, political, and in- 
dustrial hopes is reached. 

The whole-souled Treasurer of the Parnell 
Testimonial Fund in the United States, Rev. 
Thomas J. Conaty, was born in Kilnaleck, County 
Cavan, Ireland, on August 1, 1847. ^ n 1 ^5 l n ^ s 
parents emigrated to America and settled in 
Taunton, Mass. After receiving a preliminary 
education in the schools of that town, he entered 
Montreal College in 1863, and four years after- 
wards " passed " to the Holy Cross College, 
Worcester, Mass., where he graduated in 1869. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 627 

After a course of theology in the Montreal Sem- 
inary, he was ordained a priest in December, 1872, 
and assigned to St. John's Church, Worcester, 
where he spent seven years as the assistant of 
Rev. Thomas Griffin, Chancellor of the Diocese 
of Springfield. In January, 1880, a portion of 
the old parish was erected into an independent 
parish under the title of the Sacred Heart of 
Jesus, and Father Conaty was assigned to the 
charge, which demanded a new church, residence 
and parish appointments. 

Father Conaty was among the first to enlist in 
the cause of the Land League, and at the Buffalo 
and Chicago conventions was Chairman of the 
Committee on Resolutions. He is prominent as 
an exponent of Irish rights, and an unflinching 
advocate of total abstinence, occupying to-day the 
position of Vice-President of the Total Abstinence 
Union of America. 

Father Conaty is a magnificent specimen of the 
Celtic race ; is over six feet in height, and as stal- 
wart mentally as he is physically. 

Roger Walsh, the successor of John J. Hynes 
as Secretary of the Irish National League of 
America, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 18, 
1859. He is the youngest son of Patrick Kieran 
Walsh, who died in July, 1886. His father's entire 
life was spent in the work of advancing his coun- 
try's cause, and elevating the position of her chil- 
dren in America. He was born in Dundalk, 

37 



628 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

County Lowth, Ireland. Leaving the " old land " 
with the Young Irelanders in '48, he no sooner 
reached this side of the Atlantic than he identified 
himself with the cause for the support of which 
he was compelled to emigrate. Although a 
young and helpless family depended upon his 
efforts for support, he found time to gather about 
him the exiled of his race that were scattered 
about in his locality and organize them for the 
preservation of the national spirit and the main- 
tenance of a dignified position before the Ameri- 
can people. In Cleveland, Ohio, where he finally 
settled, his name is known but to be loved, and 
his memory but to be revered. His nationalism 
was a part of his nature, and like it sincere, un- 
compromising and ever active. He repelled 
attacks on his country and her children, no 
matter whence the source, and with such vigor, 
backed by a wealth of historical research anil 
logic, that his opponents have invariably retired, 
discomfited by the telling thrusts he knew so well 
how to direct. His tongue and pen were ever 
ready. The oppressed never called upon him in 
vain for help. In every movement that looked to 
the betterment of his people he was found active. 
The League owes much to his intelligent efforts 
and ability as an organizer. Although he believed 
in sterner methods than those advocated from the 
League platform, he did not intrude his own views, 
holding to the policy of obtaining all that was 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. fiOp 

possible for Ireland with the aid of the League, 
and demanding more, if necessary, by more vig- 
orous measures. His public life was an exempli- 
fication of honest purpose sternly pursued. In 
his home life he was tender, lovine and true. His 
home was his Paradise ; his wife, Susan, was his 
ardent supporter in every undertaking. Her 
nationalism was not less strong than his own, 
and her influence was a wonderful aid to her 
husband in the dark hours when Ireland needed 
the help of men as good and true. 

It is not to be wondered at, that with such 
parents the son was a nationalist by instinct. 
He imbibed his spirit from earliest infancy. 
At about the age of seventeen years he 
began his apprenticeship as a printer in the 
office of the Cleveland, Ohio, Herald, now de- 
funct, and two years afterwards was promoted to 
a position on its city staff. Later on he con- 
nected himself with the Cleveland Leader, which 
he left to enter into commercial life. In 1883 he 
was called to the Secretaryship of the League, and 
fulfilled the duties of his position under Presidents 
Sullivan and E^an, resi^nin^ a t the National 
Executive Committee meeting, Aug. 14, 1885. 
He then established himself in the printing busi- 
ness, but the building in which he had invested 
his capital was destroved by fire within a month, 
and since that time he has devoted himself to 
journalism. He is now a member of the city 



630 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

staff of the Record of Philadelphia, Pa. He has 
been ardently engaged in Irish matters since his 
seventeenth year, and, largely through his father, 
has a wide knowledge of men and events in the 
history of American movements for Ireland's wel- 
fare. In manner he is quiet and reserved, and 
has no predilection for oratory. His taste lies in 
the direction of literary work, and believing that 
every opportunity should be utilized for the cause 
he holds so dear, has used his influence in news- 
paper life whenever and wherever he found it 
was possible to advance the national principles 
of his people. 

An earnest and faithful auxiliary, when the 
Land League most needed help in the City of 
Brotherly Love, was Martin I. J. Griffin, of 
Philadelphia, Pa. He was born in that city on 
the 23d day of October, 1842, and from his 
earliest youth evinced great interest in the affairs 
of the Catholic Church, and in the movements of 
Irish societies generally. In 1859, at the age of 
seventeen years, he entered upon an active career 
of usefulness which has not been abated by the 
lapse of time. 

In 1867 he became the editor of the Guardian 
Angel, a position which he retained until 1871. 
In August, of that year, he was instrumental in 
introducing into Philadelphia the Irish Catholic 
Benevolent Union, and in the following Septem- 
ber organized the "Young Philopatrians" — the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. fril 

first Total Abstinence Society in Philadelphia 
under the present movement. At the same 
period, and during the subsequent year, 1872, he 
was also engaged as an associate editor of the 
Catholic Standard, and thus with his voice and pen 
was working diligently to further the multiplied 
interests of the church. In the month of March, 
1873, he established the /. C. B. U. Journal, and 
has remained at the head of that paper up to the 
present time as its editor and proprietor. In 
April, 1879, he founded Branch No. 56, Catholic 
Knights of America, this being the first branch of 
the order established in this city. During the 
following year, on the 24th of November,* 1880, 
a meetine was called at the business office of the 
/. C. B. U. Journal, No 7 1 1 Sansom street, when 
a branch of the Irish Land League was formed. 
Mr. Griffin, with his usual zeal, manifested con- 
siderable interest in the organization of this the 
first branch of the Land League in Philadelphia, 
and when the first public meeting was called in 
Philopatrian Hall, on Sunday, December 4, 1880, 
he was honored by being chosen as the secretary 
and treasurer of the branch, Mr. Charles Fay 
being elected its president. He afterwards at- 
tended several of the conventions of the Land 
and National Leagues, and in the great conventions 
of the Land League, and of the Irish Race, held 
in Philadelphia, in April, 1883, he was made the 
Chairman of the Press Committee, a position which, 



632 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

from his peculiar attainments and his thorough 
knowledge of the duties required, he was emi- 
nently qualified to fill. Undaunted with very 
many other projects on hand, some of them of a 
business and others of a religious and patriotic 
nature, the month of July, 1883, found Mr. Griffin 
engaged in compiling a " Catholic History of 
Philadelphia," selected portions of which have, from 
time to time, appeared in the columns of the 
/ 0. B. U. Journal, much to the edification of the 
adherents of the church and to the public in 
general. He was also one of the organizers, on 
July 22, 1884, of the Catholic Historical Society 
of Philadelphia, and has since been elected its 
first vice-president. He is also jhe author of 
"The History of Old St. Joseph's," together with 
a " History of St. John's Church," and of an ably 
written treatise on " William Penn, the Friend of 
Catholics." Among his other literary productions 
are : " The Irish in Philadelphia," " Catholicity in 
Philadelphia," and other works. Mr. Griffin is a 
member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 
the Historical Society of Buffalo, N. Y., and of 
the Linnsean Society of Lancaster, Pa. 

Human liberty, in O'Neill Ryan, of St. Louis, 
Missouri, has always found a stalwart advocate. 
He was born in St. Louis, on the 5th day of 
January, i860, and came from good old Irish stock. 
His father, who died in 1866, was from Tipperary, 
while through his mother, who still survives, he 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 633 

traces his ancestry to Oliver O'Neill, a "rebel of 
'98." Although still a young man, Mr. Ryan 
has already shown those qualities which belong 
to a maturer manhood, and has achieved consid- 
able success in his profession as a lawyer. In his 
boyhood he attended the public schools of his na- 
tive city, but at the age of thirteen years was 
obliged, like many others who have since risen to 
eminence, to do battle in the world for a liveli- 
hood. About eight years ago he entered the 
law office of G. Campbell, Esq., a man who, in the 
prime of life, is ranked among the leaders of the 
bar in the West. In Mr. Campbell he found a 
sympathetic and kindly disposed friend, and as he 
was unable to take a collegiate course, he worked 
under his generous guidance, and studied hard to 
fit himself for the profession of his choice. In 
June, 1880, he passed a successful and creditable 
examination in the Circuit Court at St. Louis, and 
was admitted to practice at the bar. Mr. Ryan 
had the usual up-hill task of a young lawyer, but 
with a firm determination to succeed, he has 
overcome all obstacles, and is now in a position 
to look back with pleasure upon the conflicts and 
discouragements of other years. He is now as- 
sociated in business with his friend and preceptor, 
Mr. Campbell, and is engaged in practice in the 
State and Federal Courts. 

Mr. Ryan is thoroughly familiar with Irish his- 
tory and an enthusiast on all matters connected 



g;>4 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

with Ireland. In 1 88 1 he entered the Land 
League movement and has been actively con- 
nected with Irish national affairs ever since, hav- 
ing at various times been president of local 
Leagues, attended the national conventions and 
delivered numerous addresses. In 1884, at the 
Boston Convention, he was elected first Vice- 
President of the Irish National League of Amer- 
ica, and held that position during Mr. Egan's 
administration, and until the Chicago Convention 
of the summer of 1886. 

Another self-made Irish-American who has 
risen to high social position in his adopted 
country, and whom I have met at every con- 
vention, is William John Gleason, of Cleveland, 
Ohio. He was born in County Clare, Ireland, on 
June 2, 1846, and the following year his parents 
came to the United States and shortly afterwards 
settled in Cleveland, Ohio, where he has since 
continued to reside. He acquired his early edu- 
cation in the parochial and public schools, but at 
the age of twelve years was obliged to go forth 
and battle with the stern realities of life, to earn a 
subsistence for himself, and to aid his parents. 
He commenced his career as a newsboy, and two 
years later entered the office of the Cleveland 
Plain Dealer, where he learned the trade of 
printing, mastering all the branches of the art 
preservative, and working at the "case" for nearly 
eight years. Upon the breaking out of the Civil 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 635 

War in 1861, although not yet fifteen years of age, 
he purchased a drum and entered the service of 
his adopted country as a drummer-boy, in Camp 
Taylor, at Cleveland, Ohio, where he continued 
until his parents, thinking him too young for a 
military life, took him out of the service. Two 
years subsequently, in July, 1863, he shouldered 
a rifle and became a member of the Twenty-ninth 
Regiment, Ohio National Guard, and remained 
with that organization until May 5, 1864, when he 
enlisted in Company E, of the 150th Regiment 
Infantry, Ohio Volunteers. He immediately 
accompanied his regiment to Washington and 
was detailed for duty in the forts surrounding the 
National Capital. At the close of the term of 
enlistment of the regiment, he received an honor- 
able discharge, when he re-entered the office of 
the Plain Dealer and worked at the " case " until 
Nov. 1, 1869, leaving the latter position to accept 
that of City Circulator, and taking entire charge 
of the city edition until the year 1882, officiating 
in the meantime, also, on the reportorial staff. 
While connected with the Plain Dealer, from 
which he graduated as its sub-proprietor, he was 
Secretary of the Typographical Union for three 
terms, and for a similar period was Secretary of 
the Trades Assembly. In the year 1882, he 
resigned his position in the newspaper office to 
enter the business of fire insurance. 

In matters pertaining to the Church and the 



63G GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Irish cause, Mr. Gleason has always been in the 
foremost rank. In 1865, when nineteen years of 
age, he became a member of Tara Circle, Fenian 
Brotherhood, and was an active worker in that 
organization until its disbandment. He also 
joined the Irish Nationalists Society when the 
latter was organized, and with his pen, purse, and 
voice, from his earliest youth to the present time, 
has been unceasing in pushing the battle for Irish 
freedom. For seven consecutive terms he was 
President of the Irish Literary and Benevolent 
Association, an organization embracing within its 
ranks the best materials of Irish society in Cleve- 
land ; and for two years he was the Librarian of 
the same association. Frequently, after a day of 
hard work, Mr. Gleason would devote himself to 
reading the history of his native land, in order 
that he might carry out a resolve, made in youth, 
that he would do everything within his power to 
elevate his race at home and abroad, to bring 
freedom to his long-oppressed but ever defiant 
countrymen. This resolve he has since been 
carrying into effect whenever opportunity pre- 
sented. His steadfast loyalty to the cause of 
Ireland has been abundantly shown by his active 
work. 

In 1878, he called a meeting of the Irishmen 
of Cleveland to make arrangements for celebrat- 
ing the Robert Emmet Centennial. As chairman 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (537 

of the committee he made a stirring appeal to his 
fellow-countrymen, and the result was one of the 
grandest demonstrations ever held in the Academy 
of Music of Cleveland. Mr. Gleason gave a 
sketch of Emmet's life, closing his address by 
reading, with much feeling, the farewell speech 
of Ireland's martyr. 

When the Land League was formed in Ireland, 
Mr. Gleason shortly afterwards organized a branch 
in Cleveland and was elected its President. On 
the occasion of the visit of Charles Stewart Par- 
nell and John Dillon to America, in 1879, they 
were invited to visit Cleveland, which they did in 
January, 1880, when Mr. Gleason was again at 
the head of the committee of arrangements, and 
so perfectly were the details carried out that Mr. 
Parnell said : " It was the grandest and most sat- 
isfactory demonstration he had witnessed since 
his arrival in this country." A monster proces- 
sion was organized, ending with a gathering of 
over four thousand people in the evening, when, 
at the meeting then held, a large sum was realized 
for the national cause, as well as for the famine- 
stricken people of Ireland, while public opinion in 
Cleveland was strongly moulded in favor of the 
Irish cause. When Mr. Parnell was about leav- 
ing the United States, he wrote a list of names, 
and handed them to his sister, with the request to 
submit them to the leaders of the Land League 
as additions to the American branch of the League 



(J;]8 GLADSTONE- PARNELL. 

Executive. The list as published in the Boston 
Pilot at the time was as follows : John Boyle 
O'Reilly and Patrick A. Collins, Boston ; Thomas 
A. Kinsella, Brooklyn ; E. M. Stone, of the Chi- 
cago Evening Journal ; J.J. McCafferty, Lowell, 
Mass. ; P. M. McGlynn, Fall River, Mass. ; J. W. 
Mahone, Brookton, Mass. ; James J. Nolen, Lynn, 
Mass. ; William J. Gleason, Cleveland, O. ; Rev. 
T. Walsh, Waterbury, Conn. ; Captain Lawrence 
O'Brien and James Reynolds, New Haven, Conn. ; 
Hon. Robert Liddell, Mayor of Pittsburgh, Pa. ; 
J. H. Mellen, Daily Times, Worcester, Mass.; 
James Doran and Rev. H. P. Lalor, Danbury, 
Conn. 

Mr. Gleason was a delegate to the Irish Land 
League National Convention at Chicago, in 1882, 
and a member of its Committee on Permanent 
Organization. He was also a delegate to the 
Irish Race Convention in Philadelphia, in 1883, 
and was one of its secretaries, besides being 
chosen the executive member for Ohio. He was a 
delegate to the Irish National League Conven- 
tion at Boston, in 1884, and acted as its Chief 
Secretary, and was also Chairman of the Ohio 
Delegation at the National Land League Conven- 
tion in Chicago, in 1886. His State elected him 
its executive member, and subsequently President 
John Fitzgerald appointed him a member of the 
" Council of Seven," or, as it has been aptly 
termed, " The Irish-American Cabinet." He has 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 639 

been President of Parnell Branch, No. 38, of 
the Irish National League, Cleveland, Ohio, since 
its organization, and very few, if any, branches 
have raised more money for the national cause 
than No. 38. In season and out of season he has 
held the banner of Irish nationality aloft in Cleve- 
land, and has vigorously aided in forming public 
opinion favorably towards Ireland's right to self- 
government, and in organizing men and collect- 
ing money for her help. 

The cause of Irish Nationality will never die 
out in Cleveland while William J. Gleason or any 
of his patriotic sons live. Since the days of Feni- 
anism to the present, he has been continually on 
duty working for the cause of Ireland. Scarcely 
a week has passed in all of the past twenty years 
that he has not written or made speeches to mould 
public opinion in favor of Ireland's right to self- 
government. He has been a faithful adherent to 
the leaders and principles of the Land League 
and the National League, and his numerous 
writings and speeches have always been loyal 
and patriotic to his native land. Several extracts 
from his public addresses have already been given, 
but this sketch of his active and busy life would 
not be complete without quoting from some of the 
other utterances which have come from him at 
various times. While making arrangements to 
celebrate the Robert Emmet Centennial, in 1878, 
he issued an appeal to the Irishmen of Cleveland, 



640 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

in which he said : " Robert Emmet sealed his de- 
votion to Ireland by offering up his gallant and pure 
young life as a sacrifice on the altar of his country, 
for the principle of establishing a free and inde- 
pendent republic in his native land, in which all 
of his countrymen would enjoy liberty and stand 
upon an equality. As Emmet died for all Ire- 
land, so all Irishmen, irrespective of creed or clan, 
ought to unite in a fitting demonstration in honor 
of Ireland's illustrious patriot. Turn out wear- 
ing the tri-color — the emblem of Irish Nationality, 
or wearing our own immortal green." His writ- 
ings all through show the promptings of a patriotic 
heart and mind to secure, what was always upper- 
most in his thoughts, the independence and wel- 
fare of Ireland. 

The history of the Irish cause in America can 
never be fully told without reference to the activi- 
ties and practical interest that have been shown 
for the past two decades by James Reynolds 
(known as " Catalpa Jim"), of New Haven, 
Conn. A staunch and uncompromising believer 
in the right of universal freedom, he has always 
come to the front in any practical movement for 
the weal of his native land. Never faltering, 
even when the sacrifice of his worldly resources 
was demanded, the voice of his country has dom- 
inated all his being, and next to the love of his 
Maker comes the reverent devotion that he has 
for the land of his birth. James Reynolds is a 



THE GREAT TRISH STRUGGLE: 641 

pure, unselfish patriot ; around his name breathes 
a lustre undimmed by a single thought of personal 
ambition, the faintest breath of self-interest or in- 
dividual aggrandizement. Other men have given 
greater intellectual gifts to the service of Ireland; 
others have told her wrongs with a sublimer magic 
of eloquence, and waked the sympathies of men in 
the sweep of their mighty oratory, and still others, 
perhaps, have braved a larger measure of personal 
danger ; but none has devoted his whole energies, 
his entire worldly fortune with a loftier patriotism, 
a more generous spirit of sacrifice than James 
Reynolds has for the little isle that gave him 
birth. 

James Reynolds comes naturally by his patriot- 
ism, for he springs from a noble and patriotic 
strain. His ancestry dates back over fourteen 
hundred years to the noble sept Mac Raghnaill, 
which the Irish historians tell us was a branch of 
the tribe called the Conmaie, whose founder was 
Conmacni, third son of Fergus Mac Roigh, by 
Meive, the celebrated Queen of Connaught, in 
the first century of the Christian era. The 
ancient territory of the Mac Rannells (of which 
the surname Reynolds was a corruption) was 
called Conmacni Moy Rein — otherwise Muinter 
Eois ; it lay in the County of Leitrim, and was 
co-extensive with the modern baronies of Leitrim 
and Garrycastle, all bordering upon Annally, in 
the north of the County of Longford. The 



642 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

Mac Rannells had castles at Rinn, Leitrim and 
Lough Scur. James Reynolds himself is a native 
of the County Cavan, where he was born on the 
20th of October, 1831. He was but sixteen years 
of age when, during the memorable famine that 
peopled the cemeteries of Ireland, he bade adieu 
to his native heath and sailed away to the distant 
shores of America, bearing with him a freight of 
precious memories that were to bear fruit in after- 
years of patriotic endeavor. On his arrival in 
this country he at once apprenticed himself to 
learn the brass-founding trade, and in 1850 he 
settled in Connecticut which has ever since been 
his home. For twenty years and more he has 
been a resident of New Haven, where he has 
received repeated political honors at the hands of 
his fellow-citizens. He served three years as 
Alderman, during two of which he was President 
of the Board, and in that capacity was at various 
times acting Mayor of New Haven. For seven 
years he has been at the head of the town govern- 
ment, being elected town agent every year since 
1879 with increasing majorities; the only Irish- 
man who has ever been elevated to this position 
in a city where Puritanic influences and prejudices 
have not yet wholly passed away. Nothing could 
indicate more forcibly the high regard in which he 
is held by his fellow-townsmen. In November of 
the present year he was the Democratic nominee 
for Sheriff of New Haven County, the first and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 643 

only Irishman ever honored thus, but owing to 
race prejudices and internal dissensions in the 
party he was defeated by a small margin. In 
addition to his official duties as town agent of New 
Haven, Mr. Reynolds conducts a lucrative and 
somewhat extensive business as a brass-founder. 

A born patriot, James Reynolds early espoused 
the cause of his country, and brought to its ser- 
vice all the energies of an active and impulsive 
nature. When in the years following the Ameri- 
can Rebellion Irish patriotism was directed in an 
active movement against England through her 
colonies in America, we find him foremost among 
those whose financial resources flowed freely into 
the common treasury. Not when his practical 
mind told him that not here lay the channel to 
Ireland's freedom did he close his purse-strings; 
not even when a prudent judgment convinced 
him that here lay a waste of Irish blood and hu- 
man treasures did he say nay to the appeal for 
funds. It was enough for him to know that even 
one blow was struck at England, one thrust was 
made in the great cause of Irish freedom. James 
Reynolds never believed that the liberation of 
Ireland was to be effected through the conquest 
of Canada. His strong native sense and saga- 
cious foresight taught him the folly of such a 
hope. Yet when the movement was inaugurated 
he entered into it heart and soul, with all the en- 
thusiasm of his noble nature, hopeful that even 

<J8 



644 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

one blow might be struck at the shackles that 
bound his country. 

But it was in the Catalpa movement that his 
great patriotism found its highest opportunity, 
and the name of James Reynolds gained the im- 
perishable splendor of immortal fame. The his- 
tory of that memorable expedition is still fresh in 
the memory of Irishmen : how the little barque 
with its crallant crew sailed into Australian waters, 
and bore away its precious freight, bringing to 
freedom and glory those patriots who were expi- 
ating in exile their efforts for Ireland, bidding 
bold defiance to the British man-of-war, who 
gave her chase, and riding safely into the harbor 
of New York — all these details are still green in 
the Irish memory. And while the fame of this 
daring rescue shall last, while the name of Catal- 
pa shall wake and fan the fires of Irish enthusi- 
asm, so long will the name of James Reynolds be 
held in fond and loving remembrance. For it 
was he who mortgaged his home, who placed a 
chattel upon his household goods, who beggared 
himself for the time that the sinews might be 
forthcoming to inaugurate and sustain the expe- 
dition. Other choice spirits lent him their coun- 
sels and their fortunes, but James Reynolds ^ave 
his all that the Catalpa rescue might be consum- 
mated. True, the success of the expedition re- 
compensed him in a measure for his financial sac- 
rifices ; it brought back some of the little fortune 



THE CxREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 645 

he freely gave in the cause ; but his chief reward, 
the glory of his great heart and the pride of his 
noble life, is the memory which he treasures, 
which his children and his children's children will 
carry in their hearts, that his sacrifices were not 
in vain — that they brought humiliation to Eng- 
land, liberty and happiness to the rescued patri- 
ots, and eternal fame and glory to Ireland. 

When the Land League movement was inau- 
gurated James Reynolds at once actively inter- 
ested himself, and was one of the leading dele- 
gates at its first National Convention. He has 
been a member of every succeeding one, and 
served in every one of these gatherings as a mem- 
ber of the Committee on Resolutions. He was 
for several years a member of the Executive 
Council, the Committee of Seven, and took active 
control of the League in Connecticut. He in- 
fused much of his own enthusiasm into the move- 
ment, and during his administration the Land 
League of the Nutmeg State was well to the 
front in point of numbers and the character and 
influence of its work. Mr. Reynolds is now, and 
has been for years, a leading member of the Clan- 
na-Gael Society, and is a strong adherent of its 
national creed. Personally, he is a man of genial 
temperament, frank, guileless and companiona- 
ble, unaffected in manners or speech, open-handed 
and generous ; a man whose friendships are firm 
and lasting ; a citizen whose activities are always 



046 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

beneficial. His patriotism and love for Ireland is 
pure as the spotless lily ; with hope springing 
eternal in his breast he looks for the morn when 
the sunburst of freedom shall illumine his native 
land, and the minstrel shall sing once again the 
glories of a free and united Ireland. 

Edward Johnson, of Watertown, Wisconsin, 
was born in the Parish of Killaloe, County Clare, 
Ireland, in 1822, and emigrated to the United 
States in the year 1836, being then fourteen 
years old. Like the great majority of Ireland's 
sons and daughters, he labored under a long 
train of difficulties entailed on the people by the 
policy and action of the British Government, and 
hence acquired and inherited a dislike for that 
Government which has grown in intensity with 
the lapse of time. He was educated in the Cath- 
olic faith, and learned the business of a druggist 
and pharmacist. After numerous severe trials, 
unknown to many of the youth of the present day, 
in the spring of 1844 he commenced business in 
the village of Watertown (now a city of eight 
thousand inhabitants), Wisconsin, at a time that 
tried the courage and perseverance of men. The 
remnant of Black Hawk warriors were being run 
down by United States Cavalry ; the wolf was 
looking in at the door, and the land covered with 
a dense forest. After eight years of fruitless ef- 
fort, on account of the sparseness of people, he 
sold out his business, and in the summer of 1852 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 647 

crossed the plains, the party with which he was 
travelling being a number of times attacked by 
Indians and many lives lost. The adventures 
left a terrible impression on his mind of hardship 
and danger. In the fall of 1854 he returned to 
Watertown, and commenced the practice of his 
profession under brighter prospects, and contin- 
ued it until 1874- when he retired to a suburban 
residence of comfortable pretensions. 

Mr. Johnson has always been enlisted in the 
Irish struggle for liberty, and now that his once 
strong arm is no longer able to respond to the 
will, he deems his life but half-filled because the 
time had not come to make it felt in paying Eng- 
land back with interest for the wrongs heaped upon 
his countrymen. He was in sympathy with the 
men of '48, and in 1866 invited Thos. F. Meagher 
to Watertown, where he lectured before an 
audience of nearly three thousand people. He 
also raised considerable money for the famine- 
stricken people of Ireland, and organized the first 
branch of the Land League in Watertown, which 
is still in active service. He was a delegate to 
the two National League Conventions in Chicago, 
and also to the Milwaukee Convention, when, by a 
unanimous vote, he was elected State Treasurer 
of the National League, a position which he still 
retains He was also a member of the committee 
to visit Washington and lay before President 
Arthur the action of the convention in opposing 



648 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

forced emigration by England of her pauper- 
made subjects. He is a believer in the doctrine 
that Irishmen everywhere ought to put them- 
selves in active force against England if they 
would save the remnant of the people from 
extermination. 

Judge James W. Fitzgerald, of Cincinnati, 
Ohio, was born in Queenstown, Ireland, about the 
year 1837, and received a good collegiate educa- 
tion before leaving his native land. While still a 
young man he came to the United States and 
settled in the West, selecting the city of Cincin- 
nati as his home, where he continues to reside. 
From his earliest youth Judge Fitzgerald has 
taken an active interest in Irish affairs, and from 
his boyhood has been connected with Irish na- 
tional organizations. Before the breaking out of 
the Civil War he was a pronounced Abolitionist, 
and from 1861 to 1872 took an active interest in 
the Republican party. When Horace Greeley 
ran for the Presidency he found in Mr. Fitzgerald 
an earnest worker, and since then he has been 
identified with the Democratic party. He was 
elected to the Cincinnati City Council several 
terms by both parties, and for three different 
terms was its President. In 1864 he was elected 
County Commissioner, and in 1866 was honored 
with a seat in the State Legislature. In the mean- 
time he had commenced the study of the law, 
and in 1868 graduated from the Cincinnati Law 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 349 

College and was admitted to the bar. He made 
a specialty of criminal law, and in the following 
year was appointed assistant to Major Blackburn, 
County Prosecutor, where he made for himself a 
tine reputation. In 1384, at the solicitation of 
friends, he accepted the police judgeship, a posi- 
tion which he has since held with credit to him- 
self and the community. Judge Fitzgerald is an 
able speaker and is considered the leading repre- 
sentative Nationalist of Cincinnati. He is a de- 
voetd adherent of Mr. Parnell and his associates, 
and has done effective work throughout the country 
in making Home Rule addresses. Besides, he is 
one of the best Parliamentarians in the country, 
and has few equals as a presiding officer. 

John Groves, of Omaha, Nebraska, one of the 
best known and most respected Irishmen in the 
West, was born in Clough, County Down, Ire- 
land, in the year 1845, and was raised in the 
Episcopalian faith. He left home in i860, when 
fifteen years of age, and went to London where 
he entered the office of a merchant. At that 
early age he became an advocate in the cause of 
Irish freedom, and while in the capital of the 
British Government he associated with his own 
countrymen and was imbued with the same 
patriotic spirit. He was a Sergeant in the Lon- 
don and Irish Volunteers, and in 1867, just after 
the Manchester Rescue, he was arrested for his 
connection with the Fenian movement. The arrest 



g50 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

caused considerable excitement, and, after a 
tedious trial, the Government was obliged to give 
up some of its witnesses, a detective swearing 
that he would not believe them on their oath. 
The principal witness, however, was the notorious 
Corydon, the informer, and as a result of the 
trial, Groves was sent to prison where he re- 
mained eight months. Upon being released he 
came to America and remained for some time in 
New York. He then went to the West and 
located in Omaha, Nebraska, where he entered 
the service of the Union Pacific Railway Company, 
and was soon advanced to the position of chief 
division clerk. After serving in that capacity for 
some time he left the railroad service, and 
accepted the important position of Deputy County 
Treasurer, at Omaha. 

A broad-guage, level-headed Nationalist is 
John F. Armstrong, the widely known member 
of the firm of Daly & Armstrong, wholesale and 
retail dealers in dry goods, in Augusta, Georgia. 
He was born near Tubbercurry, County Sligo, 
Ireland, in September, 1845, anc * came to America 
in 1865, settling in Georgia, where he has since 
resided. From his earliest years he has been an 
Irish Nationalist in sentiment, and now might be 
fairly described as an advanced Nationalist. 
Although the city of Augusta, in which he resides, 
has not a large Irish population, yet, through his 
efforts and those of kindred patriotic spirits, it 





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THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (J53 

has done well for the Irish cause. Before the 
organization of the Land League in Augusta, in 
1880, and of which Mr. Armstrong was the first 
president, the people contributed the sum of 
$3,500 to the Irish Relief Fund, and have since 
given $3,000 to the Land League and the Irish 
National League of America. He was a delegate 
to the convention of the Land League held in 
Philadelphia, in April, 1883; an d to the Irish 
National Convention, held in the same city, and 
since then his leadership, among the Irish people 
of Augusta, has been recognized by sending him 
as a delegate to every convention of the Irish 
National League of America. At the Land 
League Convention in 1883 he participated in the 
debate on the question of settling what ought to 
be done by the League, pending action by the 
Irish National Convention which was to meet 
immediately afterwards. He favored the action, 
which was finally taken, to place the affairs of the 
Land League in the hands of a Committee of 
Seven, with power to dissolve it if the platform 
and proceedings of the Irish National Convention 
met their approval. He was honored with an 
appointment on the committee, which declared 
the Land League dissolved and merged into the 
new organization, the Irish National League of 
America. He was also elected by the National 
Committee one of the Executive Committee of 
Seven, and re-elected to the same position after 
the convention in Chicago, in January, 1886. 



654 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

After attending a meeting of the National 
Committee, Mr. Armstrong made a brief visit to 
Ireland, and was authorized by the officers and 
National Committee of the Irish National League 
to seek an interview with Mr. Parnell for the 
purpose of laying before him certain matters 
relating- to the welfare of the Irish cause, and <jave 
him proper credentials for that purpose, In 
regard to that interview the most ridiculous 
statements were made, both at home and abroad. 
It was said that Mr. Armstrong was sent to 
dictate and to force upon Mr. Parnell a more 
aggressive policy, threatening him, in the event 
of non-compliance, with a withdrawal of the 
support of the Irish National League of America. 
The facts of the case, however, were, that Mr. 
Armstrong first met Mr. Parnell at the Broadstone 
Station, Dublin, on the morning of Feb. 8, 1886, 
and not at the House of Commons, as reported. 
Mr. Parnell was then going to Galway to adjust 
some trouble that had arisen in consequence of 
T. M. Healy and J. G. Biggar supporting 
Michael Lynch, a local Nationalist, for Parliament, 
against Capt. O'Shea, whom Mr. Parnell was 
anxious to see elected. Mr. Armstrong informed 
him that he had some funds for the organization, 
(Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, the Treasurer, had made him 
the bearer of ,£2,000,) some letters to present, 
and some other matters to lay before him, and 
asked that a day for an interview be appointed. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 655 

This was done by Mr. Parnell, by naming Friday, 
February ist, at Morrison's Hotel, Dublin. At 
that time a most pleasant interview of two hours 
was held, at which no allusions were even made 
in reference to dictation or aggressiveness, and, 
at its conclusion, Mr. Parnell, in a most friendly 
manner, pressed his hospitality upon his visitor, 
and entertained him in a most gratifying manner 
by detailing his expectations and hopes for the 
future of Ireland. Mr. Armstrong parted with 
the Irish leader on the most friendly terms, and 
shortly afterwards returned to the United States. 

Mr. Armstrong has also been engaged in other 
positions of trust and honor. He was one of the 
committee to wait upon President Chester A. 
Arthur, at the Executive Mansion, in Washington, 
to present to him the resolution passed by the 
Philadelphia Convention in regard to assisted 
emigration. He was married some years ago, 
and has had seven children, four of whom are 
living. 

Michael J. O'Brien, of Chattanooga, Tennes- 
see, was born in County Cork, Ireland, near the 
city, in 1844. His parents came to America when 
he was an infant and resided for some years at 
New York. When he attained his majority Mi- 
chael concluded to try his fortune in the South, 
and removed to Tennessee and settled in Chat- 
tanooga in 1867. He embarked in business in 
that city in 1869 in a very modest way, but by 



656 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

close application and by the exercise of the in- 
domitable energy which characterized him in after- 
life he built himself up, step by step, until to-day 
he is recognized as one of Chattanooga's most 
successful wholesale merchants. His marked 
abilities were keenly appreciated by his fellow- 
citizens, and he has served a term as President 
of the Board of Trade of that flourishing city and 
also as President of the Iron, Coal and Manufact- 
urers' Association, the most successful industrial 
organization in the South. He is closely identi- 
fied with the commercial and industrial interests 
of his city and enjoys public confidence to the 
fullest extent. The popular regard in which he 
is held by his fellow-citizens was demonstrated on 
two occasions when he came within a few votes 
of being elected Mayor of Chattanooga, and re- 
duced the usual opposition majority seven-eighths. 
In 1883 he was elected Supreme Treasurer of the 
Catholic Knights of America, and his administra- 
tion of the affairs of that body met with such 
hearty indorsement that in 1885 he was unani- 
mously re-elected. He was the delegate from 
Chattanooga to the National League Conven- 
tions, and has been for several years President of 
the local branch. Mr. O'Brien is an ardent pa- 
triot, loves the land of his birth as he loves his 
life, and has always been quick to respond to 
every appeal of his countrymen. His liberal 
purse and eloquent words have ever been at the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 657 

service of his country, and he has been universally 
regarded as one of the ablest and most influential 
champions of Irish emancipation in the South. 

Thomas H. Walsh, Executive Officer of the 
Irish National League for the District of Colum- 
bia, the subject of this sketch, was born near Kil- 
sheelan, in the County of Tipperary, Ireland, on 
the 26th day of May, 1844. His father was one 
of the most independent and extensive farmers in 
that county, and many times proved his devotion 
to his native land, notably at the battle of Carrick- 
shock (Tithe War), in which he received a severe 
bayonet wound while fighting side by side with 
seven of his brothers. Mr. Walsh emigrated to 
this country when a mere boy and settled in Bos- 
ton, Massachusetts, where he studied and prac- 
tised the profession of pharmacy. At the early 
age of fifteen years he joined the Fenian-organi- 
zation and later became a member of other kin- 
dred Irish societies, with some of which he is still 
connected. In the latter part of 1865 he went 
South and settled in New Orleans, Louisiana, 
from which place he went to Savannah, Georgia, 
succeeding his uncle, Dr. Walter M. Walsh, in the 
wholesale and retail drug business. Later he 
went to New York City, where he married, and 
soon after left for Washington, D. C, to accept a 
position under the Government. He is at present 
employed in the War Department. Mr. Walsh 
was one of the committee that received Mr. Par- 



658 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

nell on his arrival in Washington, 1880, and aided 
in procuring for the Irish leader the rarely accord- 
ed privilege of addressing the members of the 
House of Representatives while in session. He 
helped to form and was elected President of the 
first branch of the Irish Land League G f Wash- 
ington, D. C. In 1884 he was elected a delegate 
to the Boston Convention of the Irish National 
League, the successor of the Irish Land League, 
when he was chosen its Executive Officer for the 
District of Columbia, and was in January, 1886, 
appointed by President Patrick Egan one of his 
Executive Council. He was again elected a dele- 
gate to the Chicago Convention held in August, 
1886, and for a second time was chosen an 
Executive Officer of the League for said District, 

which position he still holds. 

* 

AMERICAN CITIZENSHIP AND THE OWNERSHIP OF 
AMERICAN SOIL. 

At a meeting of the National Executive Com- 
mittee held in Chicago in April, 1884, the Hon. 
M. V. Gannon, of Iowa, one of its members, drew 
attention with startling clearness to the encroach- 
ments being made on American soil by foreign 
" land-grabbers." As a result of his remarks and 
of the proofs with which he backed up or sup- 
ported his assertions, a committee was appointed 
to wait upon the approaching national convention 
of each of the great political parties and request 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 659 

the insertion of a plank in each of their platforms 
pledging its party to such legislation as would 
make American citizenship -indispensable to the 
possession of American soil. The committee con- 
sisted of Hon. Alexander Sullivan, of Chicago, 
Illinois, as chairman ; Rev. Charles O'Reilly, 
D. D., Detroit, Michigan ; Thomas O'Reilly, 
M. D., of Missouri ; William M. Collins, of Ken- 
tucky, and James Reynolds, of Connecticut. To 
the proper committee of each convention the com- 
mittee presented carefully prepared papers replete 
with facts, historical and argumentative, drawing 
attention to the stealthy growth of foreign land- 
lordism on our soil and asking the committee to 
take such cognizance of and action upon the sub- 
ject as its importance demanded. Mr. Sullivan 
and the committee were heard with great respect 
and their request complied with. 

The key-note that Alexander Sullivan struck 
at the Philadelphia Convention he continually re- 
peated throughout his Presidency of the League, 
that the Irish race in this country is only the 
auxiliary, not the dictator, of the race in Ireland. 
" It is for them to choose the road which leads to 
liberty; ,it is for us to march with them upon it," 
was re-echoed in all his utterances, public and 
private. When the circular of Cardinal Simeoni 
against the Parnell Fund appeared, Mr. Sullivan 
resisted strong pressure from various quarters to 
bring the organization into apparent conflict 



G60 (.I.ADSTONE— PARNELT.. 

with the Roman Catholic Church. With delicate 
tact and unfailing discretion he carried the in- 
flamed feelings of the time safely past the danger 
that was so apparently imminent, and won still 
greater confidence in- the soundness of his judg- 
ment and the dignity and wisdom of .his public 
conduct. He officially inaugurated the American 
contribution to the Parnell Testimonial Fund, and 
was the first to send a subscription to its worthy 
official treasurer, Rev. T. J. Conaty. 

When the time of the general election ap- 
proached in Ireland, Mr. Sullivan called the Na- 
tional Committee together and advised that steps 
be taken forthwith to create a Parliamentary 
Fund to meet the expenses in Ireland of car- 
rying every seat which the Nationalists might 
hope to win. This aroused the highest enthusi- 
asm in Ireland, and Mr. Parnell wrote to Mr. 
Sullivan: "Your action and that of the Council 
of the League assure me that so far as the exer- 
tions of our countrymen in America can affect the 
issue, we shall not be left at the next appeal to 
the constituencies to fight alone and without ma- 
terial resources, but that everything will be done 
on your side that is possible to insure us those 
big battalions so favored by Providence." 

To Mr. Sullivan can be truthfully and aptly ap- 
plied the quotation so appropriately used with 
reference to Daniel O'Connell by Lord Charle- 
mont, in 1838, at a public banquet in Dublin : 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. QQ\ 

* " Justum et tenacem propositi virum, 
Non civiitm ardor prava jubentium ; 
Non vultus instantis tyranni 
Mente quatit solida." 

Alexander Sullivan was born in Maine, in 
1847. He began the study of law in the office of 
the Hon. Algernon S. Sullivan, of New York, was 
admitted to the bar of Illinois in 1879, and began 
the practice of his profession in the city of Chi- 
cago, where he now resides. Of slender figure, 
as he stood at the famous Philadelphia Conven- 
tion, and of medium height, his appearance is cal- 
culated to attract attention. A large intellectual 
head is rounded with a forehead expressive of 
unusual reasoning faculties. His eyes are a keen 
gray. His features have the delicacy of sculp- 
ture, and indicate a refined, proud and sensitive 
nature. The expression of his face is gentle and 
winning, and his manners are quiet and elegant. 
In social intercourse he is reserved and a good 
listener, but when disposed to talk is found rich 
in story and anecdote, and habitually avoids 
bringing politics or other public affairs into pri- 
vate society. In the breadth and firmness of his 
jaws, in the thin lips and well-set chin, his face 
being clean-shaven, in the breadth and solidity of 
his head, and the frank and penetrating glance of 

* " The man of firm and righteous will, 

No rabble clamorous for the wrong ; 
No tyrant's brow, whose frown may kill, 

Can shake the strength that makes him strong." 



QQ2 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

his eyes, is easily discerned a character in which 
extraordinary mental capacity is combined with 
courage, tact and persistence. 

The most superficial observer would see in him 
a man whose convictions would be reached by 
logic, who would hold them with the grip of hon- 
esty and maintain them with inflinching firmness 
and determination. He spoke frequently during 
the convention, and the characteristics of his 
oratory were at once apparent. His style, like 
himself, is " clear and clean-cut." He employs 
no verbiage, and his speeches can be neither cut 
nor condensed, so compact are they, so free from 
mere literary ornamentation. He is argumenta- 
tive and reasoning in speaking and writing, and 
aims straieht at men's common-sense — not at 
their imaginations or passions. Unlike many of 
his countrymen also endowed with the gift of the 
orator and capable of delivering with apparent 
spontaneity the coldly elaborated efforts of the 
closet and the midnight lamp, Mr. Sullivan is 
said to be unable to memorize even a paragraph, 
and is at his best if interrupted when speaking. 
Except in thorough study of his topic he makes 
no other preparation for occasional speaking. 
Indeed, nearly all of his finest speeches have 
been born of questions or interruptions — inci- 
dents which discompose other orators, but 
always bring his fine debative powers into bet- 
ter play. He gesticulates very little, stands 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. QQO 

solidly on both feet when speaking, apart from 
table or desk, and is to all outward appearance 
calm and composed himself, although the temper 
of his oratory is intense and passionate. He has 
been known to hold thousands in rapt attention 
in great halls and in vast open air meetings for 
more than two hours at a time without a muscu- 
lar change on his own part beyond the rare but 
graceful use of his right arm and hand. His 
voice, while not heavy, is surprisingly far-carrying, 
and clear as a bell. 

He began his political life before he was old 
enough to vote as an advocate of equal rights for all 
men, without distinction of race, creed or color, and 
"stumped" the State of Michigan in support of a 
constitutional amendment divine suffrage to the 
emancipated negroes before the adoption of the 
Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the 
United States. Mr. Sullivan supported Horace 
Greeley for President on the National Demo- 
cratic ticket, but has generally voted with the 
Republican party. His services to the Irish 
cause were given freely and without price. He 
never would accept even the smallest return for his 
expenses. To recompense him for them, even in a 
slight way, as well as in some measure to express 
their admiration of his character and services, 
General Michael Kerwin, of the New York Tablet, 
and a number of leading men of the Irish race, 
quietly subscribed a considerable sum for a testi- 



QQ4 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

monial to him. Only after the movement had 
made considerable progress did it come to his 
knowledge, and he at once directed that the checks 
should be returned to the subscribers. 

PATRICK EGAN TAKES THE REINS. 

The Second Annual Convention of the Irish 
National League of America began its sessions 
in Faneuil Hall, Boston, Massachusetts, on the 
morning of Wednesday, August 13, 1884, and 
continued until the afternoon of the following 
day. Over eight hundred delegates were present, 
representing branches of the League in vigorous 
existence in every part of the United States and 
Canada, as well as in Nova Scotia. Thomas 
Sexton, M. P., and William Redmond, M. P., 
represented Mr. Parnell and the League in Ire- 
land. General McAdaras, of Paris, France, (at 
one time erroneously supposed by the press of 
this country and England to be the justly cele- 
brated "No. 1," for whose capture and welfare 
the authorities of Great Britain showed them- 
selves to be most affectionately solicitous,) United 
States Senator Jones, Mrs. Delia T. S. Parnoi! 
and other distinguished persons were on the 
stage. The convention was called to order by 
President Sullivan. 

The President's opening address was a stirring 
one. He set forth the present attitude of the Irish 
question with great force, and closed as follows : 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (j65 

" Fellow-countrymen, the only credentials rec- 
ognized on this floor are the credentials of the 
Irish National League. On yonder threshold we 
dropped our character as members of American 
parties. The only demand the Irish National 
League makes in American politics is the demand 
for the elevation of American citizenship at ho 
and abroad. It makes that demand of all parties, 
and it makes it so determinedly that every party 
must respect it. It makes that -demand not in 
the name of the distant island whence we sprang ; 
it makes it in the name of the American Repub- 
lic, of which we are a part. It makes it not for 
the man of Irish blood alone ; but for every 
American, native and adopted, whether Celt or 
German, Scandinavian or Russian. In mutual 
respect and fervent brotherhood, manfully uncon- 
scious of those matters whereon we rightfully dif- 
fer as Americans, let our debates be so conducted 
that all parties shall fear and respect us, and that 
our highest title to their fear shall be our devo- 
tion to the republic and our respect for ourselves. 

" We meet in the historic city of the republic, 
hallowed by the earliest struggles of the Ameri- 
can people against the foe whom Ireland shall 
yet win to terms of peace — struggles in which 
our race was valiant in arms and discreet in 
council. We meet in the hall over which the Ge- 
nius of Liberty presides ; whose walls have re- 
sounded to the inspired words of him who stands 



6(36 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

to all lands and all races and all ages as the ideal 
of American citizenship— the lover of Emmet, the 
friend of O'Connell — Wendell Phillips. The 
proudest name to which we aspire we accept as 
he realized it, with its highest and fullest signifi- 
cance, with all its responsibilities and all its duties 
— the name of American citizen. To ennoble 
it by our character as a race, and conduct as indi- 
viduals, is the resolve of every man who is deter- 
mined to aid his countrymen in the achievement 
of national self-government for Ireland." 

The temporary officers of the convention were: 
President, Hon. James Mooney, of Buffalo, New 
York ; Secretaries, Charles McGlave, of Philadel- 
phia, Pa. ; M. J. Griffin, of Iowa, and Thomas J. 
Flatley, of Massachusetts. At the suggestion 
of Alexander Sullivan, Messrs. Sexton and Red- 
mond were added to the Committee on Resolu- 
tions for two reasons : first, because nothing 
should be expressed which might embarrass the 
gentlemen considering the intent of the coercion 
act, which made it an offence for an Irish subject 
to be affiliated with people in any act which might 
be construed as an unlawful act against the Gov- 
ernment ; and second, because the utterances of 
the convention, which represented the Irish of 
America, should have the hearty approval of 
Messrs. Sexton and Redmond, as, when the Irish 
spoke, they meant to speak as a unit. 

Addresses were made by Mrs. Parnell, Thomas 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 667 

Sexton, William Redmond, M. V. Gannon, U. S. 
Senator Jones, and others. As Mr. Sexton, one 
of the most eloquent orators of the Irish Parlia- 
mentary party, especially represented Mr. Parnell, 
and as his remarks were very much misrepre- 
sented and distorted by interested and malicious 
falsifiers in England, I quote the speech which he 
made on that occasion : 

" The chairman has just introduced me to you," 
said he, "as ' Mr. Sexton from Ireland,' but as I 
listened to the generous cheers with which you 
received our introduction, I found it hard to be- 
lieve that I was not Mr. Sexton in Ireland, because 
nowhere upon the soil of Ireland to-day would 
the appearance of any public man — not even in 
Connemara, nor upon the plains of Tipperary — 
be greeted with a cheer more evidently sprung 
from the bottom of the Irish heart, more obviously 
uttered by the Irish tongue, more clearly proof 
of that indestructible adhesion to one another of 
the scattered fragments of all the Irish race, 
which neither time, nor circumstance, nor calam- 
ity, nor disaster, has ever been able to break 
down. Ladies and gentlemen, it is this solidarity 
of the Irish race — it is this obstinate adhesion of 
men and women, our kith and kin, to the cause, 
to the hopes, to the rights of their race and their 
country — it is this obstinate and indestructible 
spirit of union and perseverance — that are making 
us in Ireland feel that it is no longer with hope, 



668 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

but with absolute confidence, that we regard the 
future, because the oppressor is made to feel, as 
the world feels to-day, that he has no longer to 
deal merely with a small and isolated island, with 
5,000,000 of weak and disarmed people, but that 
he has to grapple with the intellect, the force, the 
public opinion of 25,000,000 of the Irish race 
scattered by his own evil policy all the world 
over, affecting by their intelligence, their organiza- 
tion, their union, the policy and the conduct of the 
greatest governments upon the surface of the 
earth. Ladies and gentlemen, in the name of 
the Irish people and of the Irish National League 
and of the Irish parliamentary party and its illus- 
trious leader, I salute this great convention of 
our race upon the American continent — this con- 
vention which, by the good order and the pro- 
priety of its deliberations, by the discretion and 
judgment of the conclusions at which it shall 
arrive, will prove to all observers, in defiance of 
all calumniators, that capacity for deliberation on 
important questions, and for self-government 
which our enemies would fain deny us. In pay- 
ing my first visit to this great country, which I 
have lone wished to visit, both as a lover of na- 
tional liberty and also as an Irishman, I count 
myself peculiarly fortunate in that I am able to 
condense into an experience of a few hours in 
this city of Boston what otherwise I could not 
hope to gain by even years of travel, For here, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. g69 

in this historic hall, here in the very cradle where 
American liberty was nursed, here in the heart of 
this illustrious city of Boston, rich in traditions of 
heroism and of bravery, rich in traditions of pa- 
triotic self-sacrifice and of devotion to liberty — I 
Psay it is my peculiar good fortune to meet in this 
inspiring arena an assembly of men representing 
every State and party of this Union — an assembly 
of men the natural leaders of the Irish race upon 
the continent of America — men qualified by public 
service, by character, by capacity, by devotion, to 
interpret the thoughts and to utter the sentiments 
of the Irish race upon this great continent of 
America. I also congratulate the convention in 
that it is the first assembly graced by the presence 
of the gifted lady who in your presence here to- 
night verifies, emphasizes and enriches the tradi- 
tion of the devotion of her family to the cause of 
liberty. For, as in this very town relatives of this 
distinguished lady have asserted themselves in 
the cause of American liberty, so she is "here to- 
night with a sympathy as noble as theirs is, and 
with a soul as high, to prove the steady continuity 
of her devotion to the cause of the people of Ire- 
land. To this lady, the holder of a name which 
has won the affection of the people on both sides 
of the Atlantic Ocean ; to this lady, great as a wo- 
man and illustrious as a mother, we tender — I am 
sure I may say I can tender on behalf of all of 
you — our most respectful and cordial welcome. 



tf70 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Ladies and gentlemen, before I resume my seat 
— for I have promised not to intrude upon your 
time and your patience to-night — I will say that I 
am here as a delegate not only of the Irish Par- 
liamentary party, but of the Irish National League; 
that I am here to speak to you and to speak to 
the people of America, not only on behalf of that 
party which faces the oppressor of our country 
on the floor of the English House of Commons, 
but also to utter the sentiments of that organiza- 
tion which trains and organizes the resolution, 
the ingenuity and the strength of the Irish people 
for struggle upon the soil of Ireland. I am here 
as the representative of United Ireland. I am 
here to show that there is no difference in prin- 
ciple — that there is no difference in intention — 
between the men who front the oppressors of our 
country in the legislative arena and the men who 
conduct the public cause at home. And, while I 
declare that there is at this present moment per- 
fect identity of action, perfect unity of principle, 
between the people in Ireland and us who struggle 
for them on the floor of the English House of 
Commons, I believe I may add — and I think ex- 
perience will verify my words — that it will be 
found that no man who at this moment commands 
the confidence and the love of the Irish people, 
that no man who, by suffering or by service, has 
endeared himself to their hearts, will be found, 
in the critical future which is soon approaching, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. (J71 

and which will decide not only the social rights, 
but the political claims of our race — I believe I 
may say with confidence that no such man will be 
found to interpose any personal view or prefer- 
ence of his own if he finds that the intervention 
of any such personal view would have the effect 
of injuring the unity of the people, or endanger- 
ing the success of their cause. Speaking to you, 
then, gentlemen, as the spokesman of a united 
Ireland, I would say that I have confidence that 
you will prove on this occasion that the Irish race, 
long schooled in political adversity, have learned 
to extract from it sweet results that, looking back 
upon the past of our country disfigured along 
the hideous track of oppression and of suffering 
by many an evil landmark of disunion — looking 
back upon that past, I say, you will resolve that 
the historian shall not have it to say that you 
added to those landmarks of disunion — you will 
resolve to reflect in your conduct, and in your 
conclusions here, that unity to which the Irish 
people at home have been driven by long ex- 
perience and by bitter suffering ; that, whatever 
conclusion you may come to, it will be the conclu- 
sion of you all ; that, whatever step you may de- 
cide to take to advance the programme of the 
National League and to help the cause of the 
land which you love with a love undeviating and 
changeless ; that, whatever step you may take to 
strike down the power of the oppressor, you will 



672 GLADSTONE— PARK El I 

strike down all together, and that there shall be 
no disunion in your ranks." 

The permanent officers of the convention were: 
President, Hon. M. V. Gannon, of Iowa ; Vice- 
Presidents : Hon. Thomas Sexton, M. P., and Wil- 
liam Redmond, M. P., of Ireland ; J. J. Sheehan, 
of California; James Reynolds, of Connecticut; 
P. McCartney, of District of Columbia ; J. F. Arm- 
strong, of Georgia ; John M. Smyth, of Illinois ; 
John Lamb, of Indiana ; M. H. King, of Iowa ; 
John Wallace, of Louisiana ; Rev. M. A. McFeely, 
of Kentucky; Thos. J. Flatley, of Massachusetts; 
S. Jordan, of Missouri ; Patrick Martin, of Mary- 
land ; Col. J. Atkinson, of Michigan ; Patrick 
Egan, of Nebraska ; M. B. Holmes, of New 
Jersey ; Dr. W. B. Wallace, of New York ; Col. 
John O'Byrne, of Ohio ; James O'Sullivan, of 
Pennsylvania ; Patrick McGovern, of Virginia ; 
H. W. McGettrick, of Vermont ; J. J. Hayes, of 
New Hampshire; D. F. Powers, of Nova Scotia; 
H. J. Carroll, of Rhode Island ; Col. M. Boland, 
of Colorado (and now of New York) ; M. Dono- 
van, of Canada. 

Secretary, W. J. Gleason, of Ohio ; assistant 
secretaries: Charles McGlave, of Pennsylvania; 
J. J. Sheehan, of Massachusetts ; M. L. Biggane, 
of New York; Dr. W. H. Cole, of Maryland. 

The treasurer, Dr. Chas. O'Reilly, presented 
the following statement of receipts and disburse- 
ments, which the auditing committee, after exami- 
nation, pronounced "correct:" 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 673 

STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS. 
Charles VReillv, Treasurer, in account with Irish National League of 

America. 
■ a r m Motional T ea<nie Branches, from individual con- 

^ZT^:iron^, d L oS e ns t0 ^x******* «* 

?arUamentary Fund, from May ., 1883, to August II, 1884: 

States Branches. Donations. Par. Fund. 

a 1 . . $ I 6 50 

£*f Sa ? 1399 30 $67680 

CaMornia £9* ?Q 50 

Colorado ,08551 9500 $24014 

Connecticut 8 no 

Dakota Territory ° " 

Delaware 49 5 

nelaw . aie ,88 50 

p eor g ia ,87 Jo 5065 21600 

Sis ::.*.:::::::::::: 333755 ^ I4 

» llin0is . 113 58 29 25 

; mUana i 75 *9 25 

Kansas cm ^O IOSOO 720 00 

Kentucky M ~ 6 5 

Louisiana * ^ 

Maryland . . 7 75 g6 J2 

Massachusetts 3 77 9^ > 

Michigan J74 25 49 g £ ^ ^ 

^ issou,1 ( 325 16 25 00 

Minnesota ^ -> 1370 

Montana soo 00 

Nebraska.... I$ g 00 

New Hampshire • 35 > jg g 35 OQ 

New \ 01k - 2 io3 00 

N-v Je-y ^ ^ 

^ hl ° 382s 10830 1679 

2 reg0 V':'- 320477 2020 05 36900 

Pennsylvania o~r"* " a c 8r> 

Rhode Island 6o 3 °° 6 5 8 ° , 

South Carolina 5o 00 

Tennessee 23600 

».. • 86 00 

Virginia ,- IO , 

Wisconsin 349 9° "94 25 

District of Columbia 1 9b 00 

Canada 35 

Nova Scotia 

Tota l W2 21 $10093 76 $4767 05 

DISBURSEMENTS. 

Amount remitted to Alfred Webb, D^ 11 "-,^;;^,^ 4,397 5 ° 
Exoense— Postage, printing, stationery, and clerical assistance 

Usurer's office' from May I, 1883, to August I, 1884 871 4~ 

Rev. P. A. McKenna 175 70 

Rev. P. A. McKenna g 2 OQ 

Rev. Chas. O'Reilly 



(574 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

J.G.Donnelly $ 75 50 

P. A. Collins 1 

T. F. Dohertyf 4° °° 

Rev. P. A. McKenna, trip to Westerly, R. 1 10 00 

David Healy, expense from Albany to Columbus, O., to fill 

Redmond lect. engagement 37 60 

Rev. P. A. McKenna 74 25 

John G. Healy, expenses Connecticut Convention 73 68 

Chicago Office — 

Secretary's salary, 14 months $1,750 °° 

Requisites for general expenses 1,010 65 -,760 65 

Cameron, Amberg & Co 369 48 

Buffalo Catholic Publication Co 422 58 

Settlement John J. Hynes, L. L. Secretary 198 70 



$29,734 21 

RECAPITULATION. 

Total amount from Branches $24,372 21 

Total amount from Donations, etc. . . . 10,093 7° 

$34465 97 

I otal amount for Par. Fund $4,767 05 

Remitted to Alfred Webb 24,397 50 

Paid for salaries 2,450 00 

General expenses 2,886 7 1 

29,734 21 

Expense Par. Fund, cables, etc 28 00 



Balance on hand August 9, 1884, 

League and Par. Funds $4,731 /6 $4,739 05 

SUPPLEMENTARY. 
August 12. — Received in Boston from executor of Father Walsh, late 
Treasurer of Land League, the following financial statement of balance : 
April 9, 1883, Philadelphia Convention, bal. on hand. $5,093 82 

Rent of hall, Philadelphia Convention $465 00 

Rent of executive head-quarters, Continental Hotel . . 50 00 

Cablegram to Mr. Parnell 300 24 

Remitted to Mr. Parnell 903 10 

Stamps, printing, etc 25 00 

Expenses clerical labor in treasurer's office 200 00 

L943 34 

Balance turned over to Rev. Chas. O'Reilly, D. D., 
Treasurer Irish National League, Aug. 22, 1884. . . 3>!5° 4& 

Received in Boston League dues of Branches report- 
ing on floor of convention 145 50 

Received from treasurer's office, Detroit, after depart- 
ure of treasurer to convention 266 25 

Reliable assets guaranteed 200 00 

Received for Parliamentary Fund in Boston 1,1 1 1 00 

$4,873 *3 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 675 

Secretary Walsh's report was similar in its 
fiaures and other important features to that of 
the reverend treasurer. Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, 
Treasurer of the Parnell Testimonial Fund, re- 
ported that he had received contributions amount- 
ing to $i 7,5i 7.38, which he had remitted to Alfred 
Webb the celebrated Quaker treasurer ol the 
League funds in Ireland.- Several amendments 
were made to the constitution, the most note- 
worthy being section 7, which provided that "an 
amount not to exceed $3,000 shall be annually 
appropriated out of the general funds 01 the 
League, to indemnify the president of the Na- 
tional League for his time and services in the 
interest of the cause." Branches, where a mu- 
nicipal council exists, were instructed to remit to 
the national treasurer through the treasurer of 
the municipal council ; and the basis of represen- 
tation in future national conventions was fixed at 
one delegate for every fifty members in good 
standing, " provided, however, that in country dis- 
tricts where the number of fifty members cannot 
easily be reached, any number from twenty-five 
to fifty shall be entitled to one delegate." 

Rev Dr. George C. Betts, editor of The Church 
Militant, and rector of Grace Protestant Epis- 
copal Church, St. Louis, Missouri, presented the 
report of the Committee on Resolutions, which 
was unanimously adopted. He said: 

« I do not intend to introduce the reading ot 



g76 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the resolutions by making the chairman's usual 
speech, further than to say that in the delibera- 
tions of the committee the utmost harmony pre- 
vailed, and that the judgment which is here 
expressed is decidedly the judgment of the whole. 
I will say for the benefit of one or two members 
of the committee not present at this morning's 
session, that a very few changes, mainly verbal, 
have been introduced into the first resolution 
upon the suggestion of our delegates from Ire- 
land. Therefore, if the language which they 
hear now is unfamiliar to their ears, they will 
know it has not been placed without authority in 
the body of the resolutions. 

" The representatives of the Irish National 
League Q f America, in convention assembled, 
affirming the principles adopted at the Philadel- 
phia Convention, congratulate the people of Ire- 
land and their able leader, Charles Stewart 
Parnell, on the heroic efforts and untiring zeal 
which have so signally marked the history of the 
past year, abounding in evidences of gratifying 
progress in placing the people of Ireland on a 
higher plane, and securing for them, and their 
natural rights, a more adequate consideration 
from the intelligence of mankind. 

" We renew the protest, which for seven centu- 
ries has been uttered with every heart-throb of 
our race, against the cruel and unjust usurpation 
of power by a government alien to our people in 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 677 

all that distinguishes one nationality from another, 
and we pledge our moral and material support 
to every legitimate means for re-establishing the 
God-given rights of the people of Ireland to the 
possession and government of their native land. 

" To this end we are firmly purposed to direct 
all our efforts to the creation in Ireland of a com- 
plete national life, and the development of all the 
diversified industries which render a people self- 
sustaining and prosperous, not merely by the 
reduction of rents, nor a change from idle proprie- 
tors to working proprietors, but also by the revi- 
val of Irish manufactures to the exclusion of 
English goods and the promotion of an economic 
and civil life by the development of a sincere, 
noble and effectual cohesion of all her people for 
the common welfare. 

" Now, therefore, in view of these facts, be it 
"Resolved, First, That the Irish National League 
of America hereby expresses its unqualified ap- 
proval of the course pursued during the past 
year by Charles Stewart Parnell, and the Irish 
Parliamentary party under his leadership, and 
pledges itself to support them by every moral 
and material aid in the contest which they are 
waeinor aeainst Landlordism and on behalf of Irish 
national independence, and to this end we com- 
mend the Parliamentary Fund, recently opened 
by our executive for such purposes, to the gener- 
osity which characterizes our countrymen. 

40 



678 



GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 



" Second, That we congratulate the Irish Na- 
tional League of America on its success in stem- 
ming the tide of the forced emigration of the 
artificially impoverished, and in causing the United 
States Government to compel England to take 
back those whose poverty is the direct result of 
her misgovernment. 

" Third, That we record with satisfaction that 
the opposition of this League to land-grabbing in 
America by non-resident aliens has been, by the 
efforts of our Executive, adopted as the doctrine 
of the American people in their political platforms, 
and we recommend that the efforts of this League 
to end this evil do not cease until a complete 
remedy be enacted in the laws of the land. 

"Fourth, That we congratulate William O'Brien, 
of United Ireland, upon the victory obtained by 
him in his struggle against immorality, the abomi- 
nations of which are a consistent outcome of 
English misrule in Ireland, and we commend him 
for tearing the mask from Castle officialism in 
bringing its hideous practices under the execra- 
tion of mankind, notwithstanding governmental 
resistance. 

" Fifth, That we note with approval the revival 
of the study of the Irish language as one of the 
elements in the general progress of the race, and 
encourage the efforts of those en^a^ed in its 
cultivation. 

"Sixth, That we indorse and encourage the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 679 

work of the promoters of Irish colonization in 
their efficient efforts to provide homes in the 
United States for Irish immigrants, who would 
otherwise be compelled to toil without hope of 
competence in the larger cities. 

"Seventh, That the gratitude of the Irish race 
is due in a particular manner to the Executive of 
the League, Alexander Sullivan, for his unselfish 
devotion to the cause of Ireland, and that in his 
course he has shown consummate skill and ex- 
alted patriotism. We also express our commen- 
dation of the conduct in office of Rev. Charles 
O'Reilly, D. D., Treasurer; Rev. Thomas J. Con- 
aty, Treasurer of the Parnell Fund, and the other 
officers of the organization. 

"Eighth, That the death of Rev. Lawrence 
Walsh crives us occasion to record our hio-h esteem 
for his marked fidelity during the years of his 
service as an official of the Land League, and 
causes us to lament in him the loss of a sterling 
patriot, whose voice never faltered in denouncing 
English misrule, and whose life was spent in 
advocating the cause of Irish national independ- 
ence." 

The convention, at the instance of Alexander 
Sullivan, decided to transmit ^1,000 to William 
O'Brien, M. P., to be applied on the legal expenses 
incurred by that gentleman, the motion including 
the words: "It is fitting that this our greeting 
to our brother should pass through the clean 



680 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

hands of our reverend treasurer, Dr. Charles 
O'Reilly, to the equally worthy hands of the 
National Treasurer for Ireland, who has worshipped 
God at a different altar, but stands by his side for 
our mother-land — the intrepid Quaker, Alfred 
Webb." 

Despite his positive refusal to accept re-election, 
President Sullivan was unanimously chosen his 
own successor. He, however, adhered to his 
decision, although Sexton # and Redmond, in 
speeches of great earnestness, besought him, in 
common with the entire body of delegates, to 
remain at the post in which he had rendered Ire- 
land such inestimable service. Rev. Dr. O'Reilly 
also declined re-election as treasurer, but the con- 
vention emphatically refused to select another 
man for the position, so he had, perforce, to 
remain in office. The national officers elected 
were: President, Patrick Egan, Omaha, Nebraska. 
Vice-Presidents: O'Neill Ryan, St. Louis, Mis- 
souri; Thomas F. Doherty, Boston, Massachu- 
setts; Maurice F. Wilhere, Philadelphia, Pennsyl- 
vania. Treasurer, Rev. Charles O'Reilly, D. L).. 
Detroit, Michigan. Secretary, Roger Walsh, 
Chicago, Illinois. The various States, through 
their delegates, selected the following members 
of the National Executive Committee: P. Devany, 
Fort Smith, Arkansas; Judge M. Cooney, San 
Francisco, California; Peter W. Wren, Connect- 
icut; Col. M. Boland, Denver, Colorado; E. P. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 681 

Kane, Wilmington, Delaware; John F. Armstrong, 
Augusta, Georgia; Daniel Corkery, Chicago, Illi- 
nois; F. M. Ryan, Indianapolis, Indiana; Hon. M. 
V. Gannon, Davenport, Iowa; John J. Barrett, 
Louisville, Kentucky; Timothy Maroney, New 
Orleans, Louisiana; Patrick Martin, Baltimore, 
Maryland ; William J. Dawson, Michigan ; 
Thomas J. Flatley, Boston, Massachusetts; J. R. 
Corrigan, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Dr. Thomas 
O'Reilly, St. Louis, Missouri; John Fitzgerald, 
Lincoln, Nebraska; Patrick A: Devine, Manches- 
ter, New Hampshire; M. B. Holmes, Jersey City, 
New Jersey; Dr. Joseph F. Fox, Troy, New York; 
Hon. J. W. Fitzgerald, Cincinnati, Ohio; P. H. 
Lynch, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Hugh J. Car- 
roll, Pawtucket, Rhode Island; Hon. F. L. McHugh, 
Charleston, South Carolina; R. A. Odium, Mem- 
phis, Tennessee; Dr. J. D. Hanrahan, Rutland, 
Vermont; Richard F. Curran, Richmond, Virginia; 
Hon. J. G. -Donnelly, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; 
Thomas H. Walsh, Washington, District of Co- 
lumbia; William O'Mulcahy, Grafton, Dakota; 
Jeremiah Gallagher, Quebec, Canada. 

Before it adjourned, the convention, at the 
Instance of Mr. Peter A. Hogan, of Brookline, 
Massachusetts, adopted a resolution recording its 
" deepest regret at the death of that eloquent 
champion of every oppressed and suffering peo- 
ple, Wendell Phillips, whose voice was ever 
raised, in behalf of Ireland, and whose whole life 



682 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

was one unceasing protest against tyranny in 
every land and every form." 

On the day following the adjournment of 
the convention the National Committee of the 
League met in Boston, Mass., and President Egan 
appointed as the Executive Council of Seven : 
Hon. M. V. Gannon, of Iowa; Col. Michael 
Boland, of Colorado; Timothy Maroney, of Lou- 
isiana; Thomas J. Flatley, of Massachusetts; M. 
B. Holmes, of New Jersey; Hon. J. G. Donnelly, 
of Wisconsin; and Hugh J. Carroll, of Rhode Is- 
land. The new president, Patrick Egan, handed 
in the following letter, bearing date August 15, 
1884: 

" Gentlemen of the National Committee : When 
accepting the position of president of the Irish 
National League of America, I was not aware of 
the amendment to the constitution passed in the 
earlier part of the day, to the effect that 'an 
amount not exceeding $3,000 shall be annually 
appropriated out of the general funds of the 
League to indemnify the president of the National 
League for his time and services in the interests 
of the cause.' 

" I desire now to say that in the future as in the 
past, my services shall be given to the cause of 
Ireland gratuitously, and that on no condition will 
I accept any indemnity or remuneration from the 
League." 

The committee were determined to pay the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 633 

salary ultimately, but President Egan was deter- 
mined in his refusal to accept no remuneration 
and returned into the treasury two checks for 
$3,000 each ; one for the annual appropriation to 
August, 1885, and one to August, 1886. 

On the evening after the convention there was 
an immense demonstration in the Institute Build- 
ing, Boston, Mass., at which some of the news- 
paper writers asserted there were 20,000 persons 
present. Addresses were made by Governor Rob- 
inson, of Massachusetts, Mayor Martin, of Boston. 
Gen. Benjamin F. Butler, of Boston, Hons. 
Thomas Sexton, M. P., and William Redmond, M. 
P., of Ireland, Mrs. D. T. S. Parnell, Alexander 
Sullivan, of Illinois, and United States Senator 
Jones, of Florida. 

The English press, both Liberal and Conserva- 
tive, had leading editorials on the convention, in 
which they directed the attention of the British 
statesmen, then in power, to the strength of the 
movement in America. The Standard said, among 
other things : "Englishmen cannot afford to be 
indifferent to the proceedings of the National 
League Convention just concluded at Boston 
and it is an ominous sign that Davitt's name 
was greeted with applause. Ireland would long 
since have been quiet were it not for the spasmodic 
pulsations of this character in the United States 
and the sinews of war which the vast Celtic 
crowds there are able to furnish." 



684 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

DARK DAYS AGAIN DAWN FOR THE LEAGUE. 

On September i, 1884, President Egan and the 
other national officers issued an address to the 
officers and members of the League notifying 
them of the removal of the executive offices of the 
Leaeue to Lincoln, Nebraska, stating that the 
treasurer's office would still remain at Detroit, 
Michigan, and for the purpose of inspiring a love 
of Irish nationality and a more accurate knowledge 
of Irish history in the hearts and minds of the 
rising generation of the Irish-American race, 
advising the use of musical and literary exercises 
at all branch meetings, and the appointment of a 
special committee on Irish music and literature 
for every branch in this country. It said : " There 
should also be a committee on Parliamentary Fund 
appointed in everybranch. Where there are sev- 
eral branches in a town or city, a joint committee 
should be selected ; and where there is a munici- 
pal council, that body should organize and go to 
work immediately. A general Parliamentary 
election is now possible at any time and may 
reasonably be said to be among the certainties of 
the ensuing ten months. We received the bril- 
liant representatives of the Parliamentary Party, 
Messrs. Sexton and Redmond, with cheers. 
Shall not these cheers be followed by deeds? 
After telling: them and their colleagues to go on 
and.be assured of our support, shall we give that 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 685 

support promptly and generously ? We rely upon 
your patriotism for the responses to these ques- 
tions." 

As the wise minds that heretofore directed the 
affairs of the League dreaded the introduction of 
American politics into the discussions of the 
branches, under the well-founded apprehension 
that it would be the cause of dissension amongst 
the members, and as about this time the American 
people were beginning to feel the first throes of 
political excitement over the approaching Presi- 
dential campaign, Mr. Egan felt the necessity of 
adding to the address a few words of monition. 

" In the local branches," said he, " as in the Na- 
tional Convention of the League, we drop our 
character as members of American political 
parties when we cross the threshold of the 
League hall. During the coming political can- 
vass, let no excitement or difference of opinion 
concerning political affairs either decrease our 
enthusiasm or influence our actions in the 
League. Happily we have lived to behold our 
people at home able to bury creed and provincial 
distinctions. Let us show that we are able to 
bury political distinctions in our League work, 
and to tolerate the widest differences of opinion 
in American politics among our members." 

It will be seen later on that his words of warn- 
ing were really necessary, and if his sagacious 
exhortations failed of their intended effect, the 
fault, certainly, did not lie at his door. 



686 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

For some time subsequently the contributions 
to the Irish Parliamentary Fund languished. An 
urgent appeal came over the waste ol waters from 
Charles Stewart Parnell for " renewed exertion in 
support of the Parliamentary Fund." As a spur 
to the people it was thought advisable to have a 
delegation of the most eloquent of the Irish mem- 
bers brought to the United States to deliver ad- 
dresses on the situation. Mr. Parnell was ad- 
dressed oh the subject, and in reply came the 
following letter, giving the hopes and plans of 
the great Irish leader : 

" Offices of the Irish National League, 39 
Upper Sackville Street. Dublin, January 27, 
1885. 

" Patrick Egan, Esq., President Irish National 
League of America: 

" My dear Mr. Egan : Mr. Parnell desires me 
to write to you and place before you the difficulty 
he has in acting upon your suggestion to send 
over two members of the party during the Spring. 
He had been in hopes that two members of the 
party might be able to undertake the journey; 
but the immense labor that will be thrown upon 
our small number in the forthcoming session of 
Parliament in nVhtinsr the Redistribution of Seats 
Bill and the Renewed Crimes Act will render the 
absence of even one man of our party a serious 
loss. If we can show sufficient strength in the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 687 

House during the approaching session, we will be 
able to amend the Redistribution of Seats Bill in 
such a manner that it will enable us to take pos- 
session of eighty-five seats in the new Parliament, 
while, at the same time, upon the energy and 
power we display in discussing the bill will 
depend the fate of the Crimes Act, which the 
government intends to renew. 

" Under these circumstances Mr. Parnell desires 
me to say that you and our friends in America 
will have to leave us our full Parliamentary 
strength during our approaching session, and you 
may rely fully upon his desire«and that of the party 
to send you a delegation as soon as at all possible. 

" Our organization is making splendid progress 
and doing great work. To the activity which our 
Irish branches displayed in working up the regis- 
tration of voters during the past two years we owe 
the fact that Ireland is to receive the benefit of 
the extended franchise, for we showed that with 
energy and perseverance we could secure under 
the limited franchise nearly every seat which the 
new franchise brings within our easy grasp. A 
very lar«;e proportion of our funds was expended 
on this part of the struggle, and even yet our 
expenses in attending Boundary Commissions 
and preparing schemes and evidence for them 
are very large. If, however, we had not to sus- 
tain a large number of evicted tenants who have 
come to us as a legacy from the Land League, our 



688 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

organization at home would be able to meet its 
own working expenses. But this Evicted Ten- 
ants' Fund is a first charge upon us and forms 
the largest part of our expenditure. We have 
received from our Irish branches during the year 
£6,000, while we have had to vote over ,£7,600 in 
grants to these evicted tenants. 

" I have seen a statement in some of the Ameri- 
can papers, attributed to Mr. Parnell, that no funds 
were needed in Ireland until the general election. 
He tells me he never made such a statement. On 
the contrary, it is with a view to preparing for the 
general election that-we mainly want funds. We 
shall have to put forward about ninety candidates 
at the general election in Ireland, and we must 
have local machinery prepared to work every one 
of these elections, as all the constituencies will be 
split up into single-member constituencies, and 
every man will have to fight his own corner with 
the local aid he may receive. 

" Mr. Parnell has directed me to request that 
any Parliamentary fund at present in hand might 
be forwarded, as a large proportion of the present 
expenditure of the National League falls within 
the line of a Parliamentary Fund ; such as the 
preparation of bills for the Parliament, the rent 
and expenses of Parliamentary office, and the ex- 
penses of members delegated to attend meetings, 
as well as the preparation of pamphlets on the 
Crimes Act, and the supplying of other such in- 
formation to Parliament. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 689 

" To remove these off our limited resources 
would leave us free to devote a larger propor- 
tion of our funds to organization. Under all 
these circumstances Mr. Parnell urgently requests 
that you will point out to our friends in America 
the necessity for renewed exertion in support of 
the Parliamentary Fund. Yours sincerely, 

" T. Harrington, Honorary Secretary." 

President Egan circulated that letter in every 
branch in the Union, and as a result, was able 
within almost six weeks afterwards to forward, 
through the hands of the Reverend Treasurer 
O'Reilly, the sum of ^2,000. On March 23, 
1885, the Hon. T. Harrington wrote, acknowl- 
edging its receipt. " Coming at a time," he 
said, " when it will be the duty both of the Par- 
liamentary Party and of the Irish National League 
to engage in perhaps the most extensive work 
undertaken by any organization in Ireland for a 
long time past, this generous subscription will be 
to us not only a means of strengthening our hands 
in the struo-crle in which we are about to enoraofe in 
connection with registration and general election, 
but will also be an encouragement to the many 
members of our organization working in their 
own local centres to redouble their efforts and 
prove themselves worthy of the generous con- 
fidence reposed in them by our friends abroad. 

"A" large proportion of the funds contributed to 



f)90 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the National League organization was devoted, 
during the past two years, to strengthening the 
position of our party at the Registration Courts; 
and it is to the judicious use of those funds for 
this practical purpose, we, in a large measure, 
owe the extended franchise, of which we are now 
to reap the benefit. By putting forth the whole 
strength of our organization at the approaching 
registration of voters, we shall be able to make 
the position of the National Party supreme in 
three out of the four Provinces of Ireland, and 
shall not leave in the hands of our opponents one 
single constituency in those Provinces, except, 
of course, the University of Dublin, which is 
beyond our control. But it is in the fourth 
Province, namely, Ulster, that the struggle of the 
general election will chiefly lie. Our power, even 
if disputed in the other Provinces, cannot be injured ; 
but in the Province of Ulster the struggle between 
the National Party and the West British is sure 
to brino- forth the full strength of the different 
parties in this country. Of several of the seats 
created in Ulster by the new bill we are perfectly 
sure, and the result of the general election, if 
proper advantages be taken at the Registration 
Courts of the extended franchise, will show that 
in Ulster the National Party possesses the majority 
of seats. 

" In all, then, we hope to have representing Ire- 
land in the next Parliament at least eighty-five 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. Q$\ 

followers of Mr. Parnell ; while we do not intend 
to leave the Tories or Whigs undisputed posses- 
sion even of the remainder, but to contest almost 
every seat closely with them. 

" I am very glad to be able to assure you — and 
I have no doubt the intelligence will be gratifying 
to our friends abroad — that the national spirit 
was never stronger or more hopeful in Ireland 
than it is at the present time, and that our people 
have, to a very great extent, learned to rely upon 
themselves, and are contributing, even notwith- 
standing the great depression in agricultural 
prices, very generously towards the support of 
the National League organization here." 

Shortly after receiving that communication, and 
whilst he was still congratulating himself on " the 
good work well begun," President Egan was sud- 
denly confronted with a new difficulty, which re- 
quired all his tact, prudence and decision of char- 
acter to overcome. The political campaign had 
waxed hot, and some of the leaders of the Irish 
race, notably Alexander Sullivan and Col. Michael 
Boland, arrayed themselves on the side of "James 
G. Blaine and Protection for American Industries." 
They delivered political addresses in every section 
of the country, preferring to speak before Irish 
Democratic audiences rather than Republicans. 
Thousands of Irish voters almost everywhere 
followed their lead into the Republican camp and 
cast their ballots for the " Plumed Knight," who 



692 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

still, I firmly believe, remains their idol, chiefly, how- 
ever, through the oratorical reasonings of Messrs. 
Sullivan and Boland. The action of these gen- 
tlemen created a vast amount of dissatisfaction, 
especially among that class of Democratic citizens 
who " vote the straight ticket all the time." There 
are very many thousands of Irishmen, who, mind- 
ful of the Know-Nothing excitement, could not be 
induced by any arguments to desert the Demo- 
cratic party. They have, too, a multitude of other 
reasons, which to them are all-sufficient, why they 
should not "turn their coats" and cast their lot 
with the Republican party. Many of them viewed 
with some distrust, and became exceedingly wrathy 
over the defection of Mr. Sullivan. They could 
not and would not believe that Mr. Blaine would 
inaugurate such an active foreign policy as Mr. 
Sullivan asserted his honest conviction would fol- 
low his election to the Presidency of the United 
States. Even if they did believe that such would 
have been the result, I am positive that it would 
not have changed their " political complexion." 

As the campaign progressed the dissension 
which President Egan feared at the outset of his 
administration made its appearance in nearly 
nine-tenths of the branches of the League. In 
some branches there was always found some man 
or men who were angry and dissatisfied. This 
anger and dissatisfaction increased to such a 
degree that in some places men were found who 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 693 

impugned Mr. Sullivan's motives in such a mean 
way as to cast a doubt on his honor. With him, 
they included the entire national officers of the 
organization, and charges of "treachery " and " sell- 
ing out the organization " were freely made and 
bandied about at political and other meetings 
and elsewhere. The attendance at the meetings 
of the branches and municipal councils fell off 
at an alarming rate. Ro^er Walsh, the Secre- 
tary, aided Mr. Egan in his work, night and day, 
of attempting to counteract the effects of the 
sinister influences that were threatening the very 
life of the National League in America. Circu- 
lars and addresses, full of burning and patriotic 
words, and bristling with appeals for all to stand 
by the old land in her fight for freedom, were 
sent out broadcast to the presidents, secretaries 
and delegates of every branch in the United 
States. Every proper and legitimate attempt 
that the mind of man could devise was made, to 
stem the torrent of discord that was sweeping 
everything irresistibly before it, and to restore 
the harmony and unity so essential in a great 
movement of this kind. At last President Egan 
after mature thought decided to place the exact 
facts of the situation squarely before the whole 
country and thus appeal to the sense of justice 
and fair play attributes — in which his countrymen 
stand pre-eminent. A fair opportunity of doing 
so presented itself when he received the following 

41 



694 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

letter from one of the most honored members of 
the organization, Dr. J. D. Hanrahan, State 
Delegate of the Irish National League of 
Vermont : 

"Rutland, Vt., May 4, 1885. 

"My Dear Sir: Having received several com- 
munications both from yourself and Mr. Walsh I 
thought it was but right that you should receive 
some kind of an answer. 

"When I first made an effort to organize a 
branch of the League here, I was met with the 
assertion that the officers had sold out to the 
Rupublican party. I have not been able to 
re-move that impression yet, and at present I have 
little hope of being able to do so. 

" However, I can assure you that" my heart and 
soul are in the cause, and whatever personally 
I can do shall be done, and I yet hope by making 
a supreme effort that I may be able to make 
some kind of a showing previous to your 
National Convention. I am very truly, etc., 

"J. D. Hanrahan." 

As soon as he had read the foregoing com- 
munication President Egan sat down and penned 
the following response : 

" Executive Office of Irish National League 
of America, Lincoln, Neb., May 9, 1885. 

"My Dear Dr. Hanrahan: Your esteemed 
letter of the 4th inst. has reached me and I have 



HIE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 695 

to thank you not only for your promise to forward 
the League movement in your State, but also for 
the manly candor with which you inform me of 
the slanders that are in circulation regarding the 
officers of the League. The fact that such a 
charge as that of having ' sold out ' to the Repub- 
lican party — or any other party — being made 
against the respected Treasurer of the League, 
the Reverend Dr. O'Reilly, of Detroit, against 
my predecessor, Mr. Alexander Sullivan, and, I 
may add, against myself, is proof of the utter 
unscrupulousness of a certain set of political 
bummers, and of the lamentable ignorance and 
prejudice of a certain other class of our country- 
men who believe them — if indeed any there be 
who do believe them. 

" The Reverend Dr. O'Reilly and Mr. Alexander 
Sullivan need no words of mine in their defence. 
Their antecedents, their pure and devoted patri- 
otism, their utter unselfishness of character — so 
different from that of the creatures who attempt 
to malign them — are so well known throughout 
the length and breadth of this land, that no man 
of ordinary intelligence, no Irishman worthy of 
the name, could be got to give ear to their 
slanderers. 

"For myself, I took no part in the Presidential 
campaign beyond casting my individual vote. I 
did write a letter, replying to attacks directed 
against me by the Democratic organ of this city, 



696 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

attacks, too, which were entirely unwarranted, in- 
asmuch as I had up to the time of their appear- 
ance made no public announcement of my politi- 
cal views whatsoever. This letter I submitted, 
before sending it to the press, to one of the most 
prominent Democrats in this State, and he con- 
sidered that the circumstances justified its publi- 
cation. In the letter I stated in correction 
of the published misrepresentations, the reasons 
why I, as an individual, preferred Mr Blaine to 
Mr. Cleveland, but I also stated distinctly my posi- 
tion in the following unmistakable words : 'When, 
however, at Boston, I accepted the Presidency of 
the Irish National League, I considered that what- 
ever my private opinions might be, I was thence 
precluded from taking any active part in American 
politics. Accordingly I have abstained from tak- 
ing any part, nor shall I take any so long as I 
hold the office. This is my position.' 

"That position I strictly adhered to throughout 
the entire campaign. I never by word or writing 
attempted to influence a single vote, but on the 
contrary, when again and again I was asked for 
my advice, I invariably, declined to give it. 

"The fact, however, that I, an Irishman, dared 
to have an opinion of my own, and that that 
opinion was not the regulation pattern, dictated 
by certain conventional party bosses, was suffi- 
cient to bring down upon me the venomous ma- 
lignity of a class of Irish-American politicians and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 697 

of certain prints that call themselves Irish-Amer- 
ican, solely that they may trade in Irish votes. 
But for that spirit of resistance to tyranny and 
dictation which is ingrained in my very nature I 
would not to-day be an exile from home and 
friends. Without egotism, I think I may say that 
I have made sacrifices and incurred risks in my 
opposition to English tyranny and dictation in 
Ireland that few persons have faced — sacrifices and 
risks that those who oo around slandering the 
workers for Ireland are by nature incapable of un- 
derstanding — and whatever part I may take in pub- 
lic affairs on this side I shall,I trust, always be found 
an uncompromising enemy of tyranny and dicta- 
tion from whatever quarter they may be attempted. 
"For men who honestly differ from me on ques- 
tions of politics, whether Irish or American, men 
like my friends Mr. John Boyle O'Reilly, Hon. P. 
A. Collins, Hon. M. A. Foran, Hon. M. V. Gan- 
non, my townsman, Mr. John Fitzgerald, your 
good self and many o'thers I could name, I trust I 
shall always entertain the most profound respect; 
but for those who would by their unscrupulous 
intolerance drag the cause of Ireland in the mire 
and deliberately belie and defame the good name 
of their countrymen when they venture to exer- 
cise, honestly and independently, their legitimate 
rights as citizens of this free country, I have 
no other sentiment than that of contempt and 
loathing. I remain, my dear Dr. Hanrahan, 

"Yours, faithfully, Patrick Egan." 



f598 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

This declaration of his position, and of that of 
his colleagues, did more than anything - else at that 
time to enable President Egan to brino- back to 
their allegiance many of the Leaguers and rebuild 
the organization. When the rehabilitated League 
had begun to do its work, fresh appeals were 
issued urging, above all, the presidents of branches 
and the state delegates to push forward the 
movement with redoubled energy. The tide 
turned, but it took a long time before it resumed 
its wonted channels and before the National 
League in America could fill up the fearful gaps 
that had been made in its old-time crowded ranks. 

On June 19, 1885, President Egan issued an 
appeal for the Parliamentary Fund, from Lincoln, 
Nebraska, marked " urgent ; " it was addressed to 
the presidents of the branches. In it he said : " In 
view of the momentous events of the past few days 
we deem it a duty to address you for the purpose 
of pointing out the urgency that exists for at 
once calling your branch together and taking 
steps to push the collections for the Parliamentary 
Fund. Mr. Parnell, with his band of thirty-nine 
followers (and not even all these reliable) has suc- 
ceeded in defeating and driving from power the 
strongest government that ever ruled in England, 
banishing from Ireland in disgrace Earl Spencer 
and his brutal and loathsome minions, and caus 
ing such an awakening in public opinion at home 
and abroad on the subject of English misrule in 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 699 

Ireland, that the attainment of self-government is 
now brought almost within our grasp. 

"The new ministry in England, representing a 
minority in the House of Commons, can only 
govern on sufferance during the balance of the 
session, and a general election in September or 
October is now assured. 

"With a moderate amount of the 'sinews of 
war' at his command, Mr. Parnell can secure at 
the general election the return of eighty reliable 
followers, and with that number and the balance 
of power in the hands of an honest Irish National 
party, the next two or three years will, we believe, 
bring forth results which few of us hoped to see 
accomplished in our time. 

"We are at present in communication with Mr. 
Parnell on the subject of fixing a time for our an- 
nual convention, and hope to be able to lay his 
views before you at an early date. Meantime, we 
urgently appeal to you to do all that lies in your 
power to push on the organization, and particu- 
larly to aid in raising for the Parliamentary Fund 
such a sum as will enable Mr. Parnell to take 
advantage of the all-important opportunity now 
so near at hand." 

Prompt and substantial responses from all 
quarters, some of them, indeed, from unexpected 
sources, reassured Mr. Eoran that all differences 
of opinion, political and otherwise, had been 
thrown to the winds, that the members of the 



700 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

National League had again buckled to their work 
with an earnestness of purpose that showed 
their hearts were in it, and that until the end 
of his administration he would have plain sailing 
and no rou^h waters to encounter. 

Numerous inquiries from all sides as to the 
date of the next national convention, and an im- 
pending crisis in Irish affairs in the British Parlia- 
ment, impelled the national officers to issue a call 
for a meeting in Chicago of the national execu- 
tive committee, to be held on August 15, 1885. 
The session was a long one, and the reasons given 
for the holding of the convention. at an early date 
and of postponing it, at the request of Mr. Parnell, 
were dispassionately considered. It was finally 
decided to issue an address to the officers and 
members of the League, as well as to all who 
were interested in the welfare of Ireland. 

At this session of the National Executive 
Committee, Roger Walsh presented his resigna- 
tion as National Secretary. His resignation was 
accepted with sincere regret, and John P. Sutton, 
of Quebec, Canada, was selected for the vacancy. 
Mr. Walsh, however, continued to act as secretary 
for several months^ His successor, Mr. Sutton, 
has proved himself a most capable and energetic 
officer, and the golden opinions which he gained 
among the patriotic Irishmen of Canada as an 
organizer have been considerably enhanced by 
the unstinted praise which he has received from 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 7Q1 

all with whom his official duties bring him in 
contact. 

On October 24, 1885, President Egan issued a 
call for the Third Annual Convention of the Irish 
National League of America, to be held in 
Central Music Hall, Chicago, Illinois, on Wednes- 
day and Thursday, 20th and 21st January 1886. 
This convention, he said, would be attended by 
Mr. Parnell and a strong delegation of his col- 
leagues. About six weeks afterwards he learned 
that Mr. Parnell could not possibly attend the 
convention, and in December, 1885, ne » m con_ 
junction with the other national officers, addressed 
a circular note to the members of branches, in 
which he said : " In compliance with the instruc- 
tions of the National Committee of the League, 
held in Chicago, in August last, the Executive, 
after full consultation with Mr. Parnell, fixed the 
20th January, 1886, for the holding of the 
National Convention of the League, as the time 
most suitable to the convenience of Mr. Parnell 
and his colleagues. It is now ascertained that, 
owing to the momentous result of the general 
election just completed, which places the balance 
of power between the two English parties in the 
hands of the national representatives of Ireland, 
and which has brought, at one bound, the ques- 
tion of the restoration of our native Parliament 
directly 'within the range of practical politics,' it 
will not be possible for Mr, Parnell to absent him- 



702 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

self from the post of duty at home for a suffi- 
ciently long time to enable him to attend the con- 
vention. Mr. Harrington, M. P., Secretary of the 
National League in Ireland, cabling on this 
subject, on behalf of Mr. Parnell, says, ' I am 
inclined to think it best to postpone the conven- 
tion until after the meeting of Parliament in Feb- 
ruary.' Taking into consideration this suggestion, 
the unfavorable time of the year for persons 
obliged to travel long distances, and the disap- 
pointment that would be occasioned to delegates 
by the absence from the convention of the man 
whom we are all so anxious to greet — the great 
and gifted leader of our race — we deem it our 
duty to postpone the convention to a time to be 
hereafter determined upon between the Executive 
and Mr. Parnell. 

"The Executive will call a meeting of the 
National Committee of the League (consisting of 
one delegate from each State and Territory and 
from Canada), to assemble in Chicago on 20th 
January next, and by that time we hope to have 
information from Ireland that will enable the 
committee to fix a time for the convention. 

At that time the Executive Committee found, 
after mature deliberation, that, owing to the con- 
dition of affairs in Ireland, it would be impossible 
to fix a suitable date for the meeting of the con- 
vention, and it was unanimously decided to leave 
the entire matter in the hands of the national offi- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 793 

cers — President Egan, Secretary Sutton, and the 
treasurer, Rev. Dr. O'Reilly — and to clothe them 
formally with full power. 

In some public prints, in England, Scotland, and 
America, it was hinted that " Mr. Parnell had very 
good reasons for staying away from an American 
convention." These reasons, according to the 
writers, were in effect that he was afraid, if he 
came to this country, that some of his speeches 
and public addresses might imperil his safety 
when he should return home. Insinuations of this 
kind, while they did not hurt the great Irish 
leader, sorely wounded the pride of his country- 
men, both at home and abroad, and they were 
repelled with honest indignation. His courage 
had already stood severe tests, and they were not 
at all apprehensive of a want of prudence in his 
speech or deportment. 

When these slanders had been silenced, other 
ones took their place and occupied men's minds 
for some time before it was thought necessary to 
show their falsity. It was reported, on the alleged 
authority of men whose love for Ireland was as 
undoubted as their integrity was, unquestioned, 
that the " physical force " men in the secret socie- 
ties had become tired of " the peace policy," had 
kicked over the traces, and had given their leaders 
to understand that the National League leaders in 
Ireland had had a fair trial and a full opportunity 
to carry out their aims ; that they had failed in 



704 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

their plans, and " sterner measures" must now be 
resorted to. These statements gathered strength 
and force as they were repeated in some of the 
public journals and at numerous meetings, until 
finally it was asserted that Alexander Sullivan 
and Patrick Egan had threatened Mr. Parnell 
that they would cause a revolt in the National 
League in America and the organizations which 
were said to be aiding and supporting it. This 
falsehood was wired over the Atlantic cable and 
published in very many of the most prominent 
English newspapers. Its publication, as might 
be expected, created consternation among the 
Irish Parliamentary Party and dismay among all 
classes of the people in Ireland. Inquiry suc- 
ceeded inquiry, by cable and by letter, from 
nearly every part of the civilized world. The lie, 
orowino- as it travelled, soon reached rather por- 
tentous proportions, and a comprehensive and em- 
phatic denial on the part of the American Execu- 
tive was imperatively demanded. To ignore it 
any longer would have been sheer folly. In 
order that the lie should be stamped out thor- 
oughly, and that its authors should not have even 
the slightest chance of thereafter revivifying it, it 
was determined that the denial should be compre- 
hensive and circumstantial. In April, 1 886, the fol- 
lowing document was mailed to the members ot 
the League, and a summary of its contents given to 
the newspapers by means of the Associated Press: 



the great irish struggle. 706 

" (confidential.) 

" Executive Office, Irish National League 
of America, Lincoln, Neb., April 20, 1886. 

"To the Officers and Members of the League: 
We regret to say that now, on the very eve of 
the final struggle for our country's rights, when 
every true lover of Ireland should sink his per- 
sonal ambition, jealousy and vanity, a few unscru- 
pulous, designing men are trying by the most 
malignant falsehoods and insinuations to damage 
the League, provoke dissension in its ranks, and 
create misunderstanding and distrust between the 
League in America and the League in Ireland. 
As will be seen from the following cable, the 
plotters have utterly failed: 

"To Egan, Lincoln, Neb.: English papers pub- 
lished cables from America saying Egan and Sulli- 
van condemn Parnell's peaceful policy, and threaten 
a revolt. This is done to prejudice Gladstone's 
statement Thursday. Wire authority to contra- 
dict. " Harrington. 

"Secretary of League in Ireland 
and M. P. Dublin. 

"To Harrington : Statement that Sullivan or I 
condemned Parnell's peaceful policy is an unqual- 
ified falsehood, which could only have emanated 
from an enemy to the League and a traitor to 
Ireland. " Patrick Egan. 



706 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

11 London, April 8. 
"To Egan : Gladstone's scheme for Irish legis- 
lature, amended on Parnell's lines, is worthy the 
acceptance of Ireland. "Dillon, 

" Davitt, 
"Dr. Kenny. 

" Detroit, April 8. 

"To Charles S. Parnell, House of Commons, 
London : Friends of Ireland, of yourself, of Pres- 
ident Patrick Egan, and of ex-President Alex- 
ander Sullivan, are continuing to make war upon 
and to injure you in the usual way. In evidence 
thereof I send you draft to-day for ,£12,000 (sixty 
thousand dollars), for Parliamentary Fund. We 
hereby threaten you that we will continue to wage 
just such warfare until Ireland is governed by her 
own Parliament. " Charles O'Reilly, 

"Treasurer Irish National League of America. 

" London, April 1 6. 
"To Rev. Charles O'Reilly, Treasurer Irish 
Natio7ial League, Detroit: I thank you for your 
encouraging message advising despatch of mag- 
nificent subscription of £\ 2,000. We here attach 
no credence whatever to the statement recently 
cabled from America as to the existence of any 
ill-feeling on the part of the National League of 
America or its leaders towards our movement. 
We have the utmost confidence in the leaders of 
the American League. We value their exertion 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 707 

and help most highly, and we trust that your or- 
ganization may maintain and extend its influence 
and high efficiency until the victory of the Irish 
cause is secured. " Parnell. 

" We will not refer further to these men, beyond 
saying that the members of the League should 
make no compromise with disruptionists under 
whatever name or guise they may attempt their 
work. A great responsibility rests upon us. We 
must be active, patient, vigilant. We must push 
on vigorously the great work we have in hand, on 
the strict lines laid down by the great representa- 
tive conventions of our race held at Philadelphia 
and Boston. In the interest of union and discipline 
all moneys collected by branches, or through the 
influence of members of the League, should be 
remitted through the National Treasurer, Rev. 
Charles O'Reilly, Detroit, Mich. There is but 
one National League in Ireland ; there should be 
but one amongst our people here, and any other 
policy can "have but one inevitable outcome — to 
create dissension and bring- discredit on the cause 
of Ireland. Yours, very respectfully, 

" Patrick Egan, President. 

" Charles O'Reilly, Treasurer. 

" John P. Sutton, Secretary." 

It is sufficient for me to say that the foregoing 
document did not fail of its intended effect. 



708 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

PUBLIC UTTERANCES OF EMINENT AMERICANS. 

The speech on the Irish situation delivered by 
the late Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States, at Indianapolis, Indiana, 
on September 8, 1885, fell like a thunderbolt 
from a clear sky on the British politicians, who 
had been confidently telling the English nation, 
through the London Times and other organs, that 
"men high in authority in America have no sym- 
pathy with this Irish movement." Coming as it did 
from the lips of almost the highest official in au- 
thority in the United States, it wiped that falsehood 
out of existence and taught those alleged states- 
men a lesson that many of them, wiser than their 
fellows, were prompt to profit by. To say that 
it produced a feeling of anger but poorly de- 
scribes the soreness that pervaded the ranks of 
the British Conservatives and that elicited from 
the rabid anti-Irish-at-any-cost organs so-called 
editorials, that teemed with venom and rancorous 
invective, not only against the gifted speaker him- 
self, but also against the American people. Some 
of them even spoke in a menacing tone and more 
than hinted that his language might prove a casus 
belli! His speech was delivered on a memorable 
occasion at Indianapolis, a monster mass-meeting 
held in that progressive city under the auspices 
of the Irish National League. Mayor McMaster, 
a staunch Republican, presided, and introduced 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 70b 

Vice-President Hendricks, who, in the course of 
his long address, said : 

" Every Irishman here to-night, every Irishman 
in America, is a protest against the governing of 
Ireland by England. How is it that you are here, 
having left almost the most beautiful island 
in the world ? Perhaps no part of this globe is 
more attractive than Ireland, and yet you left Ire- 
land. You're here because you could not get 
good government in Ireland. Forty-five years ago 
the population of the 'Green Isle' was nine mil- 
lions of people, a large population for a region 
of country only the size of Indiana. To-day, after 
the lapse of forty-five years, that population is only 
five millions, a loss in less than a half a century 
of four millions of people; almost an entire half 
of the entire population gone from Ireland. I 
know the famine of 1843 na( ^ rnuch to do with 
this, but bad government and cruelties by her 
landlords have done more than famine and pes- 
tilence to depopulate the beautiful isle. I would 
say it was a serious matter when a man or a woman 
chooses to leave the home that has been the 
home of ancestors for many centuries, and when, 
on account of bad government, unjust laws, and 
a cruel system of tenantry, there has been driven 
away almost half of the population. The question, 
'What. is to be done?' comes up. It cannot re- 
main always this way. The landlord who draws 

the rent cannot always enjoy it in Paris or Lon- 
42 



710 GLADSTONE— PARNEI 1. 

don. He must have part in the fortunes of the 
people of the country or quit. It cannot always 
be that the people of Ireland are to be op- 
pressed. I think the day of tyranny in every 
form is to pass away, and that the day is soon to 
come when all men will be blessed with good 
government and just laws. 

"The mission of the men sent from Ireland to 
Parliament is to have for Ireland what we In- 
dianians enjoy — to claim the right to make her 
own laws, simply because we can regulate our 
own affairs better than any one else can regulate 
them for us ; so Irishmen on their soil, for that 
simple reason, must be the legislators for Ireland. 
That was the great argument first asserted in 
this country. 

" One hundred years have established the fact 
that self-government with respect to local affairs 
is the true system of government in tnis world. 

"The great trouble in Ireland to-day is the 
Land. Where there is trouble with the lands in 
any country, the trouble is exceedingly great. 
Much has been done in Ireland to make better the 
conditions of the tenant, but the land trouble still 
exists, and it must be regulated. It must be 
regulated as we regulate such matters in Indiana 
— by legislators from the soil. No question can 
arise between landlord and tenant in Indiana that 
is not regulated by our Legislature. So Ireland 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 711 

must have local self-government. Who in Indiana 



& 



would trust to any other State the legislation 
for her schools, the building up of her industries? 
So, according to Mr. Parnell, not only the agri- 
cultural classes, but the mechanics, the people of 
the cities and towns, must live, and when Ireland 
becomes clothed with the right and power of local 
self-government, these matters will be cared for. 
This is a doctrine so plainly expressed and so 
powerful in its application to human interests 
that it will never stop. It will go on. It is not 
reasonable that in London the relation of the 
landlord and the tenant in Ireland shall be fixed. 
It is against reason and justice that such a prac- 
tice should permanently prevail. 
I think this cause will go further than has been 
yet mentioned. It will result in just what we 
have — a written Constitution. Ah, that is what I 
hope to see, Ireland to be governed by a written 
Constitution. Will it not be a grand sight when, 
in the city of Dublin, there will meet a constitu- 
tional convention to form a constitution for 
Ireland? I observe Mr. Parnell favors only 
one branch, one parliamentary body. He is 
afraid of a House of Lords, perhaps, but he 
could have, as we have here, a Senate in its stead, 
and thus be saved from errors and faults of legis- 
lation. I do not know of anything that would 
give me greater pleasure than to attend that con- 
stitutional convention in Dublin. I want to live 



712 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

until that time. Let us come back to the great 
question which lies at the foundation of govern- 
ment, the question of the right of the people to 
make their own laws, and that no other power has 
the right to make laws for them. You remember 
where we stood one hundred years back. You 
remember in the Declaration of Independence we 
asserted the right of men to govern themselves. 
This is the great foundation idea of America, and 
is now being applied in Ireland, a cause to which 
you are to give your sympathy and support — the 
right of man to govern himself and to abolish 
laws that are inimical to his welfare. In hope 
that principle was asserted at Bunker Hill, and in 
glorious triumph it was proclaimed at Yorktown." 
Although many eminent Americans had, many 
months previously, in response to letters from 
that tried patriot, Patrick Ford, of the Irish 
World, New York, written in strong condemna- 
tion of England's treatment of Ireland, declaring 
their belief that " Ireland should be free to-day, at 
least to the enjoyment of those rights wrested 
from her years ago, and to the restoration of the 
land stolen by a despotism which tolerates no 
equals, has no true friends, always making vassals 
and slaves of the debtor nations of the world 
with whom she deals," none of their utterances 
carried with them the weight and the impress] ve- 
nessof Mr. Hendricks' deliverance. It gave new 
hope and fresh courage to the friends of the Irish 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 713 

cause, stimulated* the contributions to the Irish 
Parliamentary Fund, and brought recruits in 
larcre numbers to the branches of the National 
League. In a word, his address did more than 
any*other at that time to make the advocacy of 
the Irish cause "fashionable," not alone among 
American citizens, but with those of the wealthy 
Irish-Americans or descendants of Irish im- 
migrants, who, for various reasons, had heretofore 
kept themselves aloof from Irish organizations of 
all sorts His death, which occurred a few months 
afterwards, was deeply regretted by the whole 
Irish race. In their assemblies, public and private, 
their sorrow was expressed by draping their halls 
and meeting-rooms with crape, by the adoption of 
resolutions eulogistic of his life and services by 
the heartfelt messages of condolence telegraphed 
to his widow, and by the numerous representative 
delegations sent from great distances to attend 

his funeral. 

Another speech which excited some comment 
and considerable indignation in England was that 
which was made in Portland, Maine, on June i, 
l8 86 by another equally distinguished American, 
the Hon. James G. Blaine. It was an eloquent 
definition by an American statesman of " lhe 
Irish Ouestion." After a brief introduction by 
the governor of the State, who presided, Mr. 

Blaine said : 

"Directly after the published notice of this 



714 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

meeting I received a letter from a venerable 
friend in an adjacent county asking me, as I was 
announced to speak, to explain if I could, just 
what the ' Irish Question ' is. I appreciate this 
request, for, on an issue that calls forth so much 
sympathy and so much sentiment among those 
devoted to free government throughout the world, 
and evokes so much passion among those who 
are directly concerned in the contest, there may be 
danger of not giving sufficient attention to the 
simple elementary facts which enter into the case. 
" What then is Home Rule ? It is nothing more 
and nothing less than that which is enjoyed by 
every State and every Territory of the United 
States. Negatively, it is what the people of Ire- 
land do not enjoy. In a Parliament of 670 mem- 
bers, Great Britain has 567 and Ireland has 103. 
Except with the consent of this Parliament, in 
which the Irish members are outnumbered by 
more than five to one, the people of Ireland 
possess no legislative power whatever. They 
cannot incorporate a horse railroad company, or 
authorize a ferry over a stream, or organize a 
gas company to light the streets of a city. Apply 
that to yourselves. Suppose the State of Maine 
were linked with the State of New York in a 
joint Legislature in which New York had five 
members to Maine's one. Suppose you could not 
take a step for the improvement of your beautiful 
city, nor the State organize an association of any 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 



715 



kind, or adopt any measure for its own advance- 
ment, unless by the permission of the overwhelm- 
ing majority of the New York members. How 
long do you think the people of Maine would 
endure that condition of affairs ? And yet, that 
illustrates the position which Ireland holds with 
respect to England, except that there is one 
aggravating feature in addition which would 
not apply to New York and Maine; namely, 
the centuries of oppression which have inspired 
the people of Ireland with a deep sense of wrong- 
on the part of England. 

"If the Irish question were left to the people 
of the United States to adjust, I suppose we should 
say, adopt the federal system ! Let Ireland 
have her legislature, let England have her 
legislature, let Scotland have her legislature, 
let Wales have her legislature, and then let the 
Imperial Parliament legislate for the British 
Empire. Let questions that are Irish be settled 
by Irishmen, questions that are English be settled 
by Englishmen, questions that are Welsh be 
settled by Welshmen, and questions that are 
Scotch be settled by Scotchmen. And let ques- 
tions that affect the whole Empire of Great Britain 
be settled in a Parliament in which the four great 
constituent elements shall be impartially repre- 
sented. That would be our direct, shorthand 
method of settling the question. Under that sys- 
tem we have lived and grown and prospered 



716 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

for more than two hundred years in the United 
States of America, continually expanding and con- 
tinually strengthening our institutions. 

" I do not forget, however, that it would be polit- 
ical empiricism to attempt to give the details 
of any measure that would settle this long conten- 
tion between Great Britain and Ireland. To 
prescribe definite measures for a British Parlia- 
ment would be a presumption on our part as 
much as for the English people to prescribe 
definite measures for the American Congress. 
I have noticed so many errors, even among 
the leading men of Great Britain concerning the 
United States, that I have been taught modesty in 
attempting to criticise the processes and the 
specific measures of Parliament. I well remember 
that Lord Palmerston, on a grave occasion during 
our civil war, informed the House of Commons 
that 'the President of the United States could not 
of his own power declare war; that it required 
the assent of the Senate.' And yet every school- 
boy in America knows that it is the Congress of 
the United States, both Senate and House, 
to which the war power is given by the Constitu- 
tion of the United States. But Lord Palmer- 
ston's error was not so bad as another which 
is said to have occurred in the British Parliament, 
when a member in an authoritative manner 
assured the House that no law in the United 
States was valid until it had received the assent 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 717 

of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several 
States; and a fellow-member corrected him, 
saying, ' You are wrong. The American Con- 
gress cannot discuss any measure until two-thirds 
of the Legislatures of the States shall have already 
approved it.' Admonished by these and like 
instances I refrain from any discussion of the 
details of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill. It 
may not be perfect. It may not give to Ireland all 
that she is entitled to. I only know that it is 
a step in the right direction, and that the long- 
oppressed people of Ireland hail it as a great and 
beneficent measure of relief. They and their 
representatives understand it, and more than all, 
Mr. Gladstone understands it, and that is enough 
for me. 

" On the occasion of Lord John Russell's some- 
what famous motion in the House of Commons, 
in 1844, to inquire into the condition of Ireland, 
Mr. Seward said — I mean Lord Macaulay, but I 
am sure that the memory of neither will be 
injured by mistaking one for the other — Lord 
Macaulay said, in one of his most eloquent 
speeches : ' You admit that you govern Ireland 
not as you govern England, not as you govern 
Scotland, but as you govern your new conquests 
in India ; not by means of the respect which the 
people feel for the law, but by means of bayonets 
and artillery and intrenched camps.' If that 
were true in 1844, I am sure I do not exaggerate 



718 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

when I say that the long period of forty-two years 
which has intervened has served to strengthen 
rather than to diminish the truth of Macaulay's 
words. And now, without in any way denying 
the facts set forth in Macaulay's extraordinary 
statement, Lord Salisbury comes forward with a 
remedy of an extremely harsh character. He 
says in effect that ' the Irish can remain as they 
are now situated, or they can emigrate.' But 
the Irish have been in Ireland quite as long as 
Lord Salisbury's ancestors have been in England, 
and I presume much longer. His Lordship's 
lineage is not given in 'Burke's Peerage' beyond 
the illustrious Burleigh of Queen Elizabeth's day, 
and possibly his remote ancestry may have been 
Danish pirates or peasants in Normandy before 
the Conquest, and centuries after the Irish people 
were known in Ireland. I repeat, therefore, 
Lord Salisbury's proposition is extremely harsh. 
Might we not, indeed, with good reason call it 
impudent? Would it trangress courtesy if we 
called it insolent? Would we violate truth if we 
called it brutal in its cruelty? We have had 
occasion in this country to know Lord Salisbury 
too well. He was the bitterest foe that the 
Government of the United States had in the 
British Parliament during our civil war. He 
coldly advocated the destruction of the American 
Union simply as a measure of increasing the 
commerce and prosperity of Great Britain. His 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 719 

policy for Ireland and his policy towards the 
United States are essentially alike in spirit and 
in temper. 

"Another objection to Mr. Gladstone's policy 
comes from the Presbyterians of Ulster, in the 
form of an appeal to the Presbyterians of the 
United States against granting the boon of Home 
Rule to Ireland. As a Protestant I deplore this 
action. I was educated under Presbyterian 
influences, in a Presbyterian college. I have 
connection with that church by blood and affinity 
that began with my life and shall not cease until 
my life ends. And yet I am free to say that I 
should be ashamed of the Presbyterian Church 
of America if it responded to an appeal which 
demands that five millions of Irish people shall 
be perpetually deprived of free government 
because of the remote and fanciful danger that a 
Dublin Parliament might interfere with the 
religious liberty of Presbyterians in Ulster. Mr. 
Chairman, if the Home Rule Bill shall pass, the 
Dublin Parliament will assume power with a 
greater responsibility to the public opinion of the 
world than was ever before imposed upon a 
legislative body, because, if the Dublin Parliament 
is formed, it will be formed by reason of the 
pressure of public opinion from the liberty-loving 
people of the world. And if the Irishmen who 
compose it should take one step against perfect 
liberty of conscience, or against any Protestant 



720 GLADSTONE— PARNELL 

form of worship, they would fall under a con- 
demnation even greater in its intensity than the 
friendship and sympathy which their own suffer- 
ings have so widely called forth. But I have not 
the remotest fear that any such result will happen. 
The Catholics and the Presbyterians of Ireland 
will live and do just as the Presbyterians and 
Catholics of the United States live and do. 
They will accord perfect liberty of conscience 
each to the other, and will mutually be governed 
by the greatest of Christian virtues, which is 
charity. 

" Mr. Gladstone's policy includes another 
measure. It proposes to do something to relieve 
the Irish from the intolerable oppression of 
absentee-landlordism. Let me here quote Lord 
Macaulay again. Speaking of Ireland, whose 
territory is less than the territory of the State 
of Maine, less than thirty-three thousand square 
miles in extent, Lord Macaulay, in the same 
speech which I have already quoted, says : ' In 
natural fertility Ireland is superior to any area 
of equal size in Europe, and is far more important 
to the prosperity, the strength, and the dignity of 
the British Empire than all our distant de- 
pendencies together; more important than the 
Canadas, the West Indies, South Africa, Austra- 
lasia, Ceylon and the vast dominions of the 
Moguls.' I am sure that if any Irish orator had 
originally made that declaration in America 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 721 

he would have been laughed at for Celtic 
exaggeration and imagination. 

"This extraordinary statement from Lord Mac- 
aulay led me to a practical examination of Ire- 
land's resources. I went at it in a plain farmer-like 
way and examined the statistics relating to Ire- 
land's production. I gathered all my information 
from British authority, but could get no later ac- 
counts than for the year 1880 and for the years 
preceding; and I give you the result of my ex- 
amination, frankly confessing that I was astounded 
at the magnitude of the figures. In the year 1880 
Ireland produced four million bushels of wheat. 
But wheat has ceased to be the crop of Ireland. 
She produced eight million bushels of barley. 
But barley is not one of the great crops of Ire- 
land She produced seventy million bushels ot 
oats a very extraordinary yield considering Ire- 
land's small area. The next item I think every 
one will recognize as peculiarly adapted to Ire- 
land; of potatoes she produced one hundred and 
ten million bushels, within sixty millions of the 
whole product of the United States for the same 
year In turnips and mangels together she pro- 
duced one hundred and eighty-five million 
bushels, vastly greater in weight than the largest 
cotton crop of the United States. She produced 
of flax sixty millions of pounds, and of cabbage 
eicrht hundred and fifty millions of pounds, bne 
produced of hay three million eight hundred 



722 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

thousand tons. She had on her thousand hills 
and in her valleys over four million head of cattle, 
and in the same pasturage she had three million 
five hundred thousand head of sheep. She had 
five hundred and sixty thousand horses and two 
hundred and ten thousand asses and mules. 
During the year 1880 she exported to England 
over seven hundred thousand cattle, over seven 
hundred thousand sheep and nearly half a million 
of swine. Pray remember all these came from a 
territory not quite so large as the State of Maine, 
and from an area of cultivation less than twenty 
millions of acres in extent ! But with this magnifi- 
cent abundance on this fertile land, rivalling the 
richness of the ancient Goshen, there are men in 
want of food and appealing to-day to the charity 
of the stranger, and compelled to ask alms through 
their blood and kindred in America. Why 
should this sad condition occur in a land that over- 
flows with plenty, and exports millions of produce 
to other countries? According to the inspired 
command of the great lawgiver of Israel, 'Thou 
shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' 
and St. Paul, in quoting this text in his first epistle 
to Timothy, added, ' The laborer is worthy of his 
reward ; ' and yet many of the men engaged in 
producing these wonderful harvests are to-day 
lacking bread to satisfy their hunger. 

"Mr. Gladstone believes, and we hope more 
than half of Great Britain believes with him, that 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 723 

the cause of this distress in Ireland is to be traced 
in large part to the ownership of the land. Seven 
hundred and twenty-nine Englishmen own half 
the land in Ireland. Three thousand other men 
own the majority of the other half of the agri- 
cultural land of Ireland. Counting alL the hold- 
ings, there are but nineteen thousand two hun- 
dred and eighty-eight owners of land in Ireland, 
and this in a population of more than five million 
souls. Produce that condition of affairs in Maine, 
or in all New England, and the distress here in a 
few years would be as great as the distress in 
Ireland to-day. Mr. Gladstone, speaking as a 
statesman and a Christian, says that this condi- 
tion of affairs must cease, and that the men who 
till the land in Ireland must be permitted to pur- 
chase and hold it. 

"The story is not yet half told. The tenants 
and the peasantry of this little island, not so large, 
mind you, as Maine, pay a rental of sixty-five 
millions of dollars per annum upon the land. 
Besides this, Ireland pays an imperial tax of 
thirty-five millions of dollars annually, and a local 
tax of fifteen millions more. Thus the enormous 
sum of one hundred and fifteen millions of dol- 
lars is annually wrought out of the bone and flesh 
and spirit of the Irish people, and no wonder that 
under this burden many lie crushed and down- 
trodden. 

"I believe the day has dawned for deliverance 



724 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

from these great oppressions. But from the ex- 
perience of Ireland's past it is not wise to be too 
sanguine of a speedy result. For one, therefore, 
I shall not be disappointed to see Mr. Gladstone's 
measures defeated in this Parliament. The En£- 
lish members can do it. But there is one thing 
which the English members cannot do. They 
cannot permanently defy the public opinion of 
the liberty-loving people of the civilized world. 
Lord Hartington made a very significant admis- 
sion when, in a complaining tone, he accused Mr. 
Gladstone of having conceded so much in his 
measure that Irishmen would never take less. 
Well, I do not know the day, whether it be this 
year or next year or the year after that, or even 
years beyond, when a final settlement shall be 
made; but I have absolute confidence that if Mr. 
Gladstone's bills are defeated, the settlement will 
never be made on as easy terms for England as 
the distinguished Premier now proposes. 

" They complain sometimes in England of such 
meetings as we are now holding. They say we 
are transcending the just and proper duties of a 
friendly nation. Even if that were so, the Eng- 
lishman who remember 1862-3-4 should maintain 
a discreet silence. Yet I freely admit that mis- 
conduct of Englishmen during our war would by 
no means justify misconduct on our part now. I 
do not refer to that as any palliation or as ground 
for justification if we were doing wrong. I do 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 72-5 

not adopt the flippant cry of tit for tat, or the 
illogical twit of tu quoque. Indeed, there has been 
nothing done in America that is not strictly 
within the lines of justice and strictly within the 
limits of international obligation. Nor is any- 
thing done in the United States with the intention 
of injuring or with the remotest desire to injure 
Great Britain. The English people themselves 
are divided, and the American people sympathize 
with what they believe to be the liberal and just 
side of English opinion. We are no more 
sympathizing with Ireland as against England in 
the past than we are sympathizing with Glad- 
stone against Salisbury in the England of the 
present. Nor must it be forgotten that England 
herself, apparently not appreciating her own course 
towards Ireland, has never failed in the last fifty 
years to extend sympathy and sometimes the 
helping hand to oppressed nationalities in Europe 
struggling to be free from tyranny. When Hun- 
gary resisted the rule of Austria, Kossuth was as 
much a hero in England as he was in America. 
When Lombardy raised the standard of revolt 
against the House of Hapsburg, the British Min- 
istry could scarcely be held back from open ex- 
pression of sympathy. And when Sicily revolted 
ao-ainst the reiom of the Neapolitan Bourbons, 
English sympathy was so active that Lord Pal- 
merston was openly accused of permitting guns 
from Woolwich Arsenal to be smuggled on to 

43 



726 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the island of Sicily to aid the insurrection against 
Kinof Bomba. 

" The people of the United States, therefore, 
imitate many examples of England and, quite 
apart from any consideration, except the broad 
one of human fellowship, stand forth as the friends 
of Ireland in her present distress. They do not 
stand forth as Democrats. They do not stand 
forth as Republicans. They do not stand forth 
as Protestants. They do not stand forth as Cath- 
olics. But they stand forth as citizens of a free 
republic, sympathizing with freedom throughout 
the world. 

" If I had a word of personal advice to give, or 
if I were in a position to give authoritative coun- 
sel, it would be this : the time is coming that will 
probably try the patience and the self-control of 
the Irish people more severely than they have 
been tried in any other stage in the progress of 
their long struggle. And my advice is that by 
all means and with every personal and moral in- 
fluence that can be used, all acts of violence be 
suppressed. Irishmen have earned the consoli- 
dated opinion of that part of the Christian world 
that believes in free government. Let them 
have a care that nothing be done to divide that 
opinion. Let no act of imprudence or rashness, 
or personal outrage or public violence produce a 
reaction. Never has a cause been conducted 
with a clearer head or with better judgment in its 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 727 

Parliamentary relations than that which has been 
conducted by Mr. Parnell. I regard it as a very 
fortunate circumstance that Mr. Parnell is a Prot- 
estant. It has been the singular, and in many 
respects the happy fortune in every Irish trouble 
to be so led that generous-minded men the world 
over might see that it was not sectarian strife, but 
a struo-crle for freedom and good government. 
See how often in the past the leading man in 
Irish agitation has been a Protestant : Dean 
Swift, Molyneux, Robert Emmet, Theobald Wolf 
Tone, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Henry Grattan, 
and I might lengthen the list. These patriots 
carried the Irish cause high above and beyond all 
considerations of sectarian difference and founded 
it on the rights of human nature, as Jefferson de- 
fined the American cause in our own revolution- 
ary period. Thus led and thus guarded the Irish 
cause must prevail. There has never been a 
contest for liberty by any portion of the British 
Empire composed of white men that was not suc- 
cessful in the end, if the white men were united. 
By union the thirteen colonies gained their inde- 
pendence. By union Canada gained every con- 
cession she asked upon the eve of a revolution, 
and there is nothing to-day which Canada could 
ask this side of absolute separation that would 
not be granted for the asking. 

"I have only one more word to say, and that 
again is a word of advice. The men of Irish 



728 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

blood in this country should keep this question, 
as it has been kept thus far, out of our own polit- 
ical controversies. They should mark any man 
as an enemy who seeks to use it for personal or 
for partisan advancement. To the sacredness of 
your cause conducted in that spirit you can, in the 
lofty language of that most eloquent of Irishmen, 
Edmund Burke — 'You can attest the retiring 
generations, you can attest the advancing gener- 
ations, between whom we stand as a link in the 
great chain of eternal order. Conducted in that 
spirit you can justify your cause before earthly 
tribunals, and you can carry it with pure heart 
and strong faith before the judgment-seat of 
God.' " 

AMERICAN LEGISLATURES AND A COLONIAL PARLIA- 
MENT SPEAK FOR HOME RULE. 

An important chapter in the history of the 
movement in America is found in the recognition 
given by many of the legislative assemblies of 
the States of the justice of the Irish nation's plea 
for self-government. In every case where action 
was taken by them on this subject their resolu- 
tions were so worded that they gave high encour- 
agement to "the Irish-American Cabinet" and 
the rank and file of the League membership. 
Iowa was the first State Legislature that sounded 
the trumpet-call, the echoes of which were taken 
up and repeated by Rhode Island, Connecticut. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 729 

New York, and other great States. On April 9, 
1886, the following joint resolution was passed by 
the Iowa Legislature : 

"Be it Resolved by the Senate, the House con- 
curring, that the people of Iowa love liberty and 
self-government. That they believe that govern- 
ment by the people under constitutional limita- 
tions secures to the governed peace, contentment 
and prosperity. The people of Iowa sympathize 
with the people of Ireland in their efforts to se- 
cure self-government at this time. That they ex- 
tend to them congratulations over the prospect 
of Home Rule in Ireland, and, too, that a friend 
so great as Mr. Gladstone has arisen in England 
to espouse their cause." 

The minutes of the joint assembly from which 
that resolution is copied say that it was "concurred 
in unanimously by a rising vote of the House." 

On the afternoon of that day the following ca- 
blegram was sent to Ireland by instruction of 
the joint assembly : 

" Des Moines, Iowa, April 9, 1886 — Charles 
Stewart Parnell, M. P.: The Iowa Legislature, 
in session, send greeting to Messrs. Parnell and 
Gladstone on the hopeful outlook of legislative 
independence for Ireland. 

"J. A. T. Hull, President Senate. 
"Albert Stead, 

"Speaker House of Representatives, 
"Wm. Larrabee, Governor T 



730 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

On Monday, April 12, 1886, the Speaker of the 
New York State Assembly asked and obtained 
unanimous consent to offer the following resolu- 
tions : 

"Resolved (if the Senate concur), That the peo- 
ple of the State of New York do hereby tender 
the Irish people their hearty sympathy in the he- 
roic struggle they are now making for Home 
Rule in Ireland. 

"Resolved, That they view with mingled feelings 
of gratitude and respect the noble stand taken by 
England's most illustrious statesman, William E. 
Gladstone, in defence of popular government for 
the people and by the people. 

"Resolved, That we tender our congratulations 
to the English people on the fact of their having 
at length a Government possessing the courage 
and magnanimity to make an effort to do justice 
to the wronged and long-suffering country." 

They were unanimously adopted, and on the 
following day were presented in the Senate, and 
there also received the same unanimous action. 
On Tuesday, April 13, 1886, the Connecticut 
House of Representatives unanimously agreed to 
a resolution introduced by Mr. Phelan, of Bridge- 
port, expressing " sympathy with Ireland in her 
stru^o-le for Home Rule," and indorsing Mr. 
Parnell and Mr. Gladstone. On Wednesday, 
April 14, 1886, the following resolutions were 
passed by the Rhode Island House of Represent- 
atives: 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 731 

" Whereas? The Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 
Prime Minister, in the face of great prejudice, has 
announced his intention of introducing a bill 
granting Home Rule to Ireland ; therefore, the 
Senate concurring therein, be it 

" Resolved, That the Legislature of Rhode Island 
congratulates Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Parnell 
upon the great step which has been taken. 

''Resolved, That we do hereby tender them our 
best wishes for their success. 

"Resolved, That the Secretary of State be in- 
structed to transmit copies of these resolutions to 
Messrs. Gladstone and Parnell." 

In the Ohio General Assembly a resolution, 
with a long preamble, was introduced by John 
Haley, of Cleveland, on Wednesday, April 14, 
1886, and was adopted unanimously. The reso- 
lution reads : 

"Resolved, That the proposed measure about to 
be introduced by the Hon. William E. Gladstone, 
guaranteeing to Ireland legislative independence, 
meets with the hearty sympathy of this General 
Assembly, and that we have full and implicit con- 
fidence that through the statesmanship of the 
Chief Premier of England, aided by that patriotic 
and sagacious leader, Charles Stewart Parnell, the 
wrongs of the Irish people will soon be righted." 

Added importance was given in the minds of 
thoughtful men to Parnell's constitutional struo- 
gle for Ireland's autonomy by the manly and out- 



732 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

spoken action of the British Colonial Parliament 
of Quebec, Canada, which, amidst the ringing 
cheers of the House and the applause of the Can- 
adas, adopted the following : 

" Whereas, The right of self-government is sa- 
cred to the Canadian people, and 

" Whereas, They believe and know, from actual 
experience, that constitutional government brings 
strength, peace, union and prosperity to the na- 
tion ; be it 

"Resolved, That this House regards with great 
satisfaction and sympathy the efforts of the Right 
Honorable W. E. Gladstone to peacefully solve 
the problem of Home Rule in Ireland without 
disintegrating the Empire. 

"Resolved, That the Speaker of this House be 
directed to communicate a copy of these resolu- 
tions to the Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone." 

As I close this section I feel it incumbent on 
me to make a part of this record the historical 
fact that almost every prominent member of the 
United States Senate and House of Representa- 
tives has, either in his public speeches or in let- 
ters intended for the public eye, assured the peo- 
ple at large of his honest conviction that, as Con- 
gressman Stone, of Missouri, phrased it, he 
" could not be American and not be for Ireland." 
What a long array of illustrious names of Amer- 
ican statesmen, who have spoken on behalf of the 
Green Isle, looms up before the mental view 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 733 

of the writer as he • recalls their patriotic dis- 
courses: Hon. John Sherman, U. S. Senator for 
Ohio ; Hon. John A. Logan, U. S. Senator for 
Illinois ; Hon. C. H. Van Wyck, U. S. Senator 
for Nebraska ; Hon. Eugene Hale, U. S. Senator 
for Maine ; Hon. William P. Frye, U. S. Senator 
for Maine ; Hon. Leland Stanford, U. S. Senator 
for California ; Hon. G. Stoneman, Governor of 
California ; Hon. J. Ireland, Governor of Texas ; 
Hon. Robert E. Pattison, Governor of Pennsylva- 
nia ; Hon. Wm. Larrabee, Governor of Iowa; 
Hon. L. F. Hubbard, Governor of Minnesota ; 
Hon. Geo. F. Hoar, U. S. Senator for Massachu- 
setts ; Hon. R. L. Gibson, U. S. Senator for Lou- 
isiana ; Hon. J. R. McPherson, U. S. Senator for 
New Jersey ; Hon. Philetus Sawyer, U. S. Sen- 
ator for Wisconsin ; Hon. G. G. Vest, U. S. Sen- 
ator for Missouri ; General Anson G. McCook, 
Secretary of the U. S. Senate ; General Phil. 
Sheridan ; Hon. Henry W. Blair, U. S. Senator 
for New Hampshire ; Judge William D. Kelley, 
M. C. for Pennsylvania ; Hon. H. L. Dawes, U. 
S. Senator for Massachusetts ; Hon. T. A. Hen- 
dricks, Vice-President of the United States ; Hon. 
Warner Miller, U. S. Senator for New York ; 
Hon. Samuel J. Randall, M. C. for Pennsylvania ; 
Hon. J. H. Reagan, M. C. for Texas ! As I am 
not compiling a directory of the distinguished 
men of the United States, I will content myself 
with saying that the list of these names could be 
drawn out to nearly an indefinite length. 



734 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

TO STRENGTHEN GLADSTONE'S HANDS. 

On April 20, 1886, President Egan and his na- 
tional colleagues sent out an address to the offi- 
cers and members of all the branches in the 
United States, in which they said : 

" To-day we, the members of the Irish Na- 
tional League of America, who have stood by the 
cause of Ireland and kept the old flag flying when 
Irish Nationalism was unfashionable, and when 
success seemed almost hopeless, have just reason 
to feel proud of the glorious position to which 
that cause has been advanced. 

"Through the courage, determination, perse- 
verance and discipline of our people at home, 
backed by the support of our organization in 
America, and the sympathy of the civilized world, 
the demand of Ireland for the restoration of her 
national rights has been brought home to Eng- 
land in a way she dare not longer ignore. Mr. 
Gladstone, with the genius and courage of a true 
statesman, has risen to the necessities of the oc- 
casion, and has introduced into the House of Com- 
mons two measures — one o-rantincr to Ireland a 
Parliament of her own, the other providing for the 
purchase of the Landlord's interest in the lands, 
and its transfer to the occupying tenants — which, if 
passed, with certain essential modifications pointed 
out by Mr. Parnell, will, we believe, bring peace, 
happiness, and contentment to our long-distracted 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 735 

and long-suffering country. Those measures are 
now assailed by the most powerful and most un- 
scrupulous combinations, composed of men who, 
from hereditary prejudice and class interests, are 
enemies of all human progress and popular rights." 
"All sides admit the great importance of Amer- 
ican opinion in influencing the settlement of this 
vital question. Every Branch of the League 
should, therefore, without a moment's delay, or- 
ganize citizens' meetings, composed of the most 
representative men of all shades of American 
politics and men of all nationalities, and by that 
means obtain, in the form of resolutions, such an 
unequivocal expression of genuine American 
opinion as will strengthen the hands of Mr. Par- 
nell and Mr. Gladstone in the coming struggle. 

" Fellow-workers of the National League, we 
appeal to you earnestly to close up your ranks, 
to organize actively, to shun every man who at 
this important crisis of our country's fate would 
attempt to divide your strength, or introduce into 
your councils the demon of discord, and to renew 
your exertions to aid by honest, active, earnest 
work in securing that triumph, which now seems 
so close at hand, of the .great principle for which 
we are contending — the right of Irishmen ' to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness ' in their own 
land." 

Within two weeks after the formal publication 



7;j<3 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of that address among the branches what were 
then styled " Citizens' Committees " sprang up as 
if by magic in nearly every town, city, and bor- 
ough. The editors of the leading newspapers 
took an active hand in their formation, and were 
undoubtedly the most potent factors in creating 
and keeping in motion the wave of popular en- 
thusiasm in favor of righting Ireland's wrongs 
that at this date swept over the American nation. 
Monster mass-meetings were held, at which many 
of the governors of the States and the mayors 
of cities presided; indorsements of Gladstone's 
course were cabled over to Mr. Gladstone and 
Mr. Parnell, and contributions, aggregating hun- 
dreds of thousands of dollars, were subscribed, 
partly to show the sincerity of the donors and 
partly to build up a reserve fund for whatever 
expenses Mr. Parnell and his co-laborers might 
require should Mr. Gladstone's measures be de- 
feated and the "appeal to the country" be neces- 
sary. 

The man who was at the bottom of this excite- 
ment in this country, and whose "fine Roman 
hand" pointed out to willing assistants the way 
in which the State Legislatures could be influenced 
"in passing appropriate resolutions and securing 
messages of encouragement across the water," 
was Patrick Eean. The first time I met him was 
during the Philadelphia Convention. He had 
just arrived in America from Paris, France, and 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 737 

came here prepared to give a faithful account of 
the immense sums of money that had passed 
through his hands, all of it given for the cause of 
Ireland and all of it expended in her service. He 
remained in Philadelphia for several days after 
the convention and was, with our friend Tom 
Brennan the ex-Secretary of the Land League 
in Ireland, the guest of Phil. J. Walsh, the dry- 
goods merchant, of that city, who was, in 1886, fore- 
most among the most energetic members of the 
Citizens' Committee of Philadelphia in aid of the 
Irish Parliamentary Fund. The chairman of 
that committee, by the way, was John Field, of 
Young, Smythe, Field & Co., one of the most ex- 
tensive jobbing houses in the United States. At 
that time, and indeed, until the night before the 
day on which he was nominated for President of 
the League at the Boston Convention, Mr. Egan 
never imagined that he would afterwards be called 
on to fill the commanding position of a leader 
of the Irish race in America. The knowledge of 
the good work he had done on behalf of Ireland, 
from boyhood, had preceded him to this country 
and enabled the men and women of the League 
to form a correct estimate of his character and 
ability. When, therefore, his name was suggested 
as Alexander Sullivan's successor, his unques- 
tionable fitness for the position was at once recog- 
nized. How well he has filled it the history of his 
work tells. He was born in Ballymahon, County 



738 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Longford, Ireland, in 1841. While quite young 
the family removed to Dublin, and Patrick en- 
tered the grain and milling concern that after- 
wards became the National Milling Company. 
His ability pushed him rapidly forward. He was 
considered one of the best book-keepers in Dub- 
lin. In time he secured an interest in the prop- 
erty, and finally became superintendent. In 1868 
he, in company with Mr. James Rourke, estab- 
lished a bakery, which grew to be an extensive 
business in a short time. In 1883 his personal 
connection with it ceased for reasons that will 
appear. All his instincts were intensely national, 
and the condition he found his people in only 
increased his hatred of the dominant power and 
filled him with the desire of retributive justice. 
In i860 he became a member of St. Patrick's 
Brotherhood. During the few years preceding 
the '6j movement he was one of the most active 
though quiet spirits in the organization and prep- 
aration of "the boys" for what was believed to 
be a struggle with a reasonable prospect of suc- 
cess. He readily saw that with the English army 
in Ireland practically demoralized through the 
Irish soldiers being members of the Fenian 
Brotherhood ; with a fairly well-drilled native 
army ; with reliable reenforcements in England, 
and with the almost certainty of being able to 
seize upon stores of arms and ammunition by 
strategy in Ireland, the Fenians had good grounds 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 739 

for hope. The failure of that movement cast a 
gloom over him, but he did not despair though 
the blackness of night seemed to have settled on 
his country. His practical mind set about doing 
the best that could be accomplished under exist- 
ing conditions. He was one of the founders of 
the Amnesty Association, which was organized 
for the purpose of obtaining the release of the 
prisoners sentenced for connection with the '67 
movement and, in fact, all Irish political prisoners. 
Between 1868 and 1872 monster demonstrations 
were arranged and conducted successfully by the 
association, and these not only served the humane 
and holy purpose of bringing the patriots from 
English dungeons, but were eagerly seized upon 
by the Nationalists, whose energy was untiring, 
to revive the waning spirit of the masses dis- 
couraged with the failure. The immense gather- 
ings were made mediums for the exchange of 
national sentiment, and laro-e accessions were 
made to the ranks of the National Party. 

In 1869 Mr. Egan originated the great Martin 
election contest, out of which orew the Home 
Rule movement of Isaac Butt. With John 
Martin, Isaac Butt, Professor Galbraith, of Trin- 
ity College, A. M. Sullivan and others, he joined 
in the organization of the Home Rule League, 
which, for a time, did good work. In 1874, when 
Parnell ran for Parliament in County Meath, Mr. 
Egan practically conducted the canvass, and was 



740 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

mainly instrumental in securing Parnell's first 
success. In 1877 the Home Rule League be- 
came divided. The " Moderate " Home Rulers 
were led by Isaac Butt, and meant but little more 
than an easy gliding along with the current of 
events. The advanced element, who gave adher- 
ence to Parnell, were for earnest, active work. 
They meant to secure by practical and practicable 
methods real advantages for the Irish people. 
Egan gave his entire support to Parnell, and the 
latter was not slow to appreciate his wonderful 
influence. When Michael Davitt, in 1879, started 
the Land movement, Mr. Egan actively co-operated 
with him, and these two, with Thomas Brennan, 
induced Parnell to take it up. When the forma- 
tion of the Irish National Land League occurred, 
in October of the same year, it was Parnell who 
induced Mr. Egan to accept the treasurership. 
The Land League prospered to the disgust of 
the Government. It became so successful as to 
assume the proportions of a menace. The gov- 
ernment officials thought they saw in it a con- 
spiracy, and determined to crush it. The leaders 
were summarily thrown into prison. Then came 
the celebrated state trials, lasting fifteen days and 
extending through portions of December, 1880, 
and January, 1881. In these Mr. Egan was an 
active counsellor, as well as a prisoner. As in 
everything that merited his support, his energy 
was untiring. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. ' 741 

Failing in the state trial, the Government then 
moved, in February, 1881, to suspend the habeas 
corpus act, so that they might be able to arrest 
and imprison whom they pleased, without any 
form of trial. The Government also begfan to 
hatch a scheme to seize and confiscate the Leaeue 

o 

funds. The leaders thereupon prevailed on Mr. 
Eo^an to take the funds to Paris and establish 
head-quarters there, so as to maintain communica- 
tion with America when the other leaders should 
be arrested. He assented, and for a year and ten 
months he remained in that city, to the heavy 
detriment of his large business in Dublin. As an 
evidence of the bitterness of the Dublin Castle 
Government against him, they arrested his part- 
ner and kept him in prison for four months with- 
out any grounds whatever, and for no other object 
than to endeavor to ruin Mr. Egan financially by 
destroying his and his partner's business. In the 
end of 1882 Mr. Egan resigned the treasurership 
of the League, and received the warm thanks of 
a convention held in Dublin and presided over 
by Mr. Parnell, for his invaluable services to the 
cause. He returned to Dublin in December, 
1882, and resumed his business, still aiding the 
League as a member, but his troubles were not 
over. In February of 1883 he found that the 
Castle officials were hatching a plot to indict him on 
charges in connection with the "No-Rent" mani- 
festo, and knowing that arrest and indictment under 

44 



742 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the then state of the laws, and especially under 
the unlimited powers of the Crown in the matter 
of jury-packing, meant certain conviction, he 
cleared out, and, after sundry adventures, arrived 
in New York. He subsequently brought his 
family to this country, sold out his interest in the 
Dublin bakeries to his partner, Mr. Rourke, and 
embarked in the grain business in Nebraska, where 
he is the proprietor of several elevators. 

THE THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE NATIONAL 
LEAGUE. 

On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 18, 
1 886, President Egan called the Third Annual Con- 
vention of the Irish National League of America 
to order in Central Music Hall, Chicago. Among 
the noted persons present were Michael Davitt ; 
John E. Redmond, M. P. ; William O'Brien, M. 
P. ; Thomas Deasy, M. P. ; Alexander Sullivan ; 
John Devoy ; Edward Byrne, of the Freeman s 
Journal, Ireland ; Patrick Ford, of the Irish 
World, New York ; Rev. James A. Brehoney, 
Manayunk, Philadelphia ; Rev. William Meagher, 
Philadelphia ; Judge Thomas Moran, Chicago ; 
Rev. Dr. O'Brien, Toledo, Ohio ; Rev. Geo. W. 
Pepper, Ohio ; Rev. J. S. McLaughlin, New 
York ; Timothy Maroney, Louisiana ; Mrs. Delia 
Parnell, and a large delegation of ladies repre- 
senting branches and affiliated societies in various 
sections of the country. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 743 

President Egan's opening address was largely 
a summary of the political happenings in Ireland 
and En-land, a caustic arraignment of English 
prejudice, and an earnest exhortation for prudence 
and harmony during the deliberations of the 
convention. « Once more" said he, - the elected 
delegates of the Irish National League of America 
have come together in national convention to 
comply with the conditions of the constitution, 
and to adopt such measures as may seem best 
for the furtherance of the great and holy cause 
in which we are engaged. We shall, I am glad 
to sav, be inspired by the presence and aided by 
the counsel, of the man who, of all °*e<-s-not 
even excepting our great leader h.msel -hods 
the warmest place in the hearts of the Irish exiles, 
the man whom Charles Stewart Parnell has 
called the father of the Land League-honest, 
fearless Michael Davitt. We shall also have the 
inspiring presence and aid of the patriotic, brave, 
and faithful delegation from Ireland-my friend, 
William O'Brien, who has banished more snakes 
and reptiles from Ireland than any other man 
since the days of St. Patrick, John Redmond 
and John Deasy. In your name, in the name ol 
the Irish National League of America, I welcome 
these gentlemen to our convention, with a hearty 
Irish-American cead milk failthe. 

ludcre Fitzgerald of Cincinnati, Ohio, was tem- 
porary chairman. He counseled harmony in the 



744 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

deliberations of the convention and welcoming- 
the delegates from Ireland. At the suo-o-estion 
of Alexander Sullivan, who said it was but a 
repetition of the course adopted at the Philadel- 
phia Convention, it was unanimously agreed to 
"appoint Messrs. O'Brien, Redmond, Deasy and 
Davitt on the Committee on Resolutions, as repre- 
sentatives of Ireland ; the purpose of this action 
being- two-fold : i. In order that the Irish dele- 
gates may lend their counsel to prevent the pas- 
sage of any resolution calculated to embarrass the 
Irish leader. 2. That the world may behold the 
perfect unity which exists between the Irish and 
the Irish- Americans." 

In the evening, as the Committees on Creden- 
tials, Finance, Resolutions, Permanent Organiza- 
tions, etc., were unprepared to present reports, 
the convention listened to a brief and pithy ad- 
dress by the fearless William O'Brien, M. P., the 
editor of United Ireland. " I need not tell you," 
said he, " that our fight in Ireland is by no means 
over yet, and I need not tell you there never was 
a convention of the Irish race in America that 
attracted more anxious attention than centres 
upon this hall to-day in the sight of every friend 
and every enemy of Ireland throughout the globe. 
Our work, as I said, is not over. We have a 
good deal of rough weather and of rough work 
before us, I am afraid, in Ireland. By the time 
we get back there I expect we will find our people 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 745 

engaged in a struggle for their lives and for their 
homes and for the life of our movement. That 
is not a state of things that particularly dismays 
us or dismays them. All we ask is that now, as 
ever, and now more than ever, you should be at 
our backs in the fight. All we ask is what you 
have to-day most abundantly granted, and that 
is, that you will extend to Mr. Parnell, if possible, 
a larger measure than ever of support and of 
confidence and of sympathetic consideration in 
the difficult and trying times that are before us. 

" What is the secret of his power and of his 
mastery in the eyes of English statesmen ? Is it 
his eloquence and his statesmanship ? It is not. 
It is because they know that now, for the first 
time in our unhappy history, they are dealing, not 
with an Ireland in fragments or in sections, but 
they are dealing with a people united, steady, un- 
shakable — an indestructible Irish nation, bound 
together as one man, under a leader whom you 
and whom I would be proud to follow to the 
cannon's mouth for Ireland." [The convention 
rose to a man at this declaration, and cheered 
for two or three minutes.] Mr. O'Brien con- 
tinued with great emphasis : "Aye ! Those cheers 
of yours will ring across the ocean, and I will tell 
them that they are dealing now with an Ireland 
that, when Mr. Parnell gives the w r ord to halt or 
to move forward, the whole Irish nation and 
whole Irish race will take up and pass along the 



746 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

word with the discipline of a grand army on the 
inarch. [Tremendous cheering- • and cries of 
'We will follow you.'] Aye! And they know 
well that it is forward that grand army is march- 
ing; forward over the ruins of Landlordism and 
over the ruins of English domination in Ireland. 
Forward, like grim death under a' leader who has 
never yet taken one backward step on the road 
to Irish independence. That is the secret of our 
strength and of his strength. To-day, by your 
conduct here in this assembly, you have given 
him renewed strength; you have given him 
strength a thousandfold. 

"Ah! if you only knew — I am glad to see that 
to some extent the papers did make you know — 
how our brutal enemies in the press of London — 
thank God ! it is only London now and not Eng- 
land — have acted in this crisis. If you only knew 
how they are straining for every scrap of gossip 
about dissensions in this convention; if you only 
knew how they are watching you at the end of 
that wire (pointing to the telegraphic instrument 
on the platform) to-day, throughout the world, 
and how they would have crowed and exulted 
if there had been the slightest sign of strife in 
this tremendous organization. We never would 
have heard of the end of their screaming that 
Parnell was no longer the leader of the United 
Irish race, but only the leader of a faction, 
discredited and repudiated by the Irish in America. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 747 

Thank God, you have answered that to-day. 
Send a message back that will give joy to the 
heart of every Irishman in Ireland, from Cork to 
Donegal, when they read in the morning what 
you have done here to-day, and when they learn, 
what is proved abundantly to-day, that from the 
Rocky Mountains to the Alleghenies the Irish 
race in America are for Parnell to a man and to 
the death." 

On the morning of the second day's session it 
was unanimously decided that the temporary 
officers of the convention should hold their places 
permanently. Secretary Sutton announced that 
there were 770 Branches of the League in the 
United States and Canada, all of which were 
represented by delegates at the convention. The 
report of the Treasurer, Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, gave a 
detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures 
of the past two years. It also presented the follow- 
ing table of the amounts contributed by the various 
States. It must be remembered that these 
amounts are simply the moneys which passed 
directly through the hands of the reverend treas- 
urer, and are not to be confounded, in any way, 
with the hundreds of thousands of dollars sent to 
Ireland through citizens' committees, societies, 
or private individuals: 

States. League Dues. Par. Fund. 

Arkansas $2600 $1565° 

Alabama 37 00 

California -62469 138560 



-_jg GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

States. League Dues. Par. Fund. 

Connecticut $806 69 $12600 54 

Dakota Territory 95 00 805 85 

Delaware 3000 25500 

Florida 37 00 

Georgia 23925 234560 

Illinois 126950 502892 

Indiana 5° °° 276004 

Iowa 48525 462635 

Kansas 472 40 120197 

Kentucky. 28655 3757^5 

Louisiana 186 00 4395 65 

Maine 12700 64200 

Maryland 227 50 . 4788 63 

Massachusetts 1859 75 39°34 5 6 

Michigan 577 °° 697232 

Missouri 289 00 10012 00 

Minnesota 516 00 486957 

Mississippi 40 00 I OO OO 

Nebraska 193 5° 6541 30 

New Hampshire 50 00 1075 20 

New York 688000 6614452 

New Jersey 657 70 16414 64 

Nevada 925 50 

Ohio 501 75 7853 87 

Oregon 15 OO 715 Oo 

Pennsylvania 228447 6685657 

Rhode Island 737 97 4221 21 

South Carolina. 339 00 

Tennessee 598 00 2824 42 

Texas 24800 182925 

Vermont 24 50 

Virginia 152 50 42285 

West Virginia 875 00 

Wisconsin 134 65 9166 95 

District of Columbia 23000 1597 5° 

Montana 6900 1 802 85 

New Mexico 68 00 

Utah 30 00 405 90 

Washington Territory 1 1 00 

Canada and Manitoba 57400 713700 

Nova Scotia 80 00 1 1 5 00 

Donations 39°4 05 

Total $2564558 $31425752 

Mr. Brady, of Massachusetts, handed Rev. Dr. 
O'Reilly a check for $3,000 from Boston. Presi- 
dent Egan gave him a check for $2,000 from 
Patrick Ford, of the Irish World, and $443 from 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 74;) 

Father John Shanley, of St. Paul, Minn. As a mat- 
ter of public interest I give, herewith, a complete 
statement of the treasurer's receipts and dis- 
bursements, from the day on which Rev. Dr. 
O'Reilly accepted office until the close of this 
convention. They were procured for me by 
Roger Walsh from Rev. Dr. O'Reilly's secretary, 
J. B. McDowd : 

NATIONAL LEAGUE FUND. — STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS. 

Erom May i, 1SS3, to August II, 1884: 

From Branches $24,372 21 

From Donations 10,093 7^ 

Additional Boston Convention 3>5^2 23 

From August II, 1884, to August 13, 1886: 

From Branches 21,741 53 

From Donations 904 05 

From Patrick Egan (Salary Returned). 6,000 00 

$66,673 78 

DISBURSEMENTS. 

From May 1, 1883, to August 11, 18S4: 

Remitted to Alfred Webb, Ireland .... $24,397 5° 

Salaries and general expenses 5,336 71 

From August 11, 1884, to August 13, 1886: 

Remitted to Wm, O'Brien, Ireland.. . . 4,847 50 

Salaries and general expenses, 2 years. 10,036 33 

Salary Pres. Egan, 2 years 6,000 00 

50,618 04 

Balance on hand $16,055 74 

PARLIAMENTARY FUND. STATEMENT OF RECEIPTS. 

From May 1, 1883, to August 11, 1884: 

From all sources $4,739 °5 

Additional Boston Convention I, III OO 

From August II, 1S84, to August 13, 1886 : 

Interest on deposits 175 00 

From all sources 314,257 32 

$320,282 57 

DISBURSEMENTS. 

Transmitted to Chas. S. Parnell and Trustees of the Par- 
liamentary Fund 314,452 53 

Balance on hand $5,S30 04 



750 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Rev. Dr. Geo. C. Betts, of St. Louis, Mo., 
Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions, 
presented the following report as the platform 
of the League : 

" Gentlemen of the Convention : Your Com- 
mittee on Resolutions respectfully submit the fol- 
lowing report : 

" We, the delegates of the Irish National 
League of America, in convention assembled, 
firmly believing in the principles of human free- 
dom and in the right of a people to frame their 
own laws — a right which lies at the foundation 
of the prosperity and greatness of this republic, 
and which has been advantageously extended to 
the colonial possessions of Great Britain — do 
hereby 

"Resolve, i. That we express our heartiest and 
most unqualified approval of national self-govern- 
ment for Ireland. 

"2. That we heartily approve of the course 
pursued by Charles Stewart Parnell and his Par- 
liamentary associates in the English House of 
Commons, and we renew the expression of our 
entire confidence in their wisdom and in their 
ability to achieve Home Rule in Ireland. 

" 3. That we extend our heartfelt thanks to 
Mr. Gladstone for his great efforts on behalf of 
Irish self-government; and we express our grati- 
tude to the English, Scotch and Welsh democracy 
for the support given to the great Liberal leader 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 751 

and his Irish policy during - the recent general 
elections. 

"4. That this convention hereby returns its 
thanks to the American people and press for the 
generous support which they have given to the 
cause of self-government in Ireland. 

" 5. That we record our sense of the remark- 
able forbearance and self-restraint exercised by 
our people in Ireland in the face of a cruel and 
dishonest system of extortion to which they are 
being subjected by rack-renting landlords, and in 
view of the license scandalously extended to or- 
ganized lawlessness in the north of Ireland by 
partisan officials ; and we commend the laudable 
desire of the people of Ireland to manage their 
own affairs in their own way. 

" 6. That we hereby thank the President, Treas- 
urer, and Secretary of the Irish National League, 
for the faithful and efficient manner in which they 
have discharged the arduous duties of their re- 
spective stations. 

" 7. That the following cablegram be forwarded 
in the name of the Chairman of the Convention 
to Charles Stewart Parnell : ' Deleeates to the 
Irish National League Convention of America 
send greeting from our body, which embraces 
representative citizens from every State and Ter- 
ritory in the Union, and also from Canada, and 
assure you of a cordial indorsement of your pol- 
icy by a united and harmonious convention.' All 
of which is respectfully submitted." 



752 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

The report was unanimously adopted, and after 
a number of excellent speeches by John Devoy 
of New York, Alexander Sullivan of Chicago, 
John F. Finerty of Chicago, Dr. William B. Wal- 
lace of New York, Wm. J. Hynes of Chicago, 
John F. Armstrong of Georgia, and Michael 
Davitt, the resolutions were unanimously passed 
by a rising vote. Chairman Fitzgerald here in- 
troduced John E. Redmond, M. P. for Wex- 
ford, with the words : " I have now the honor to 
present to you one of the old fighting-stock of 
Ireland, who will thank you for passing the reso- 
lutions which he and his colleagues have ap- 
proved." 

Speaking in a deliberate and impressive man- 
ner, and enunciating every syllable distinctly, the 
young Irish representative's address elicited 
storms of applause. "I rise," said he, "in the 
capacity of a representative of the Parliamentary 
and National League to thank you for the reso- 
lutions reported by the committee just unani- 
mously carried. The duty which devolves upon 
my colleagues and myself of representing the 
Irish nation at home at this great gathering of the 
Irish nation abroad is one in which the honor is 
great and the responsibility heavy. Perhaps the 
greatest glory of our nation is to be found in the 
fact that our people, driven by misfortune and 
misrule from the land of their fathers, and coming 
to this land rude and ignorant and poor, have yet 






THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 753 

been able to bear an honorable part in building- 
up the fortunes of America, and to give to the 
world undeniable proof that, in addition to the 
qualities of fidelity and honesty, Irishmen, under 
a free constitution, can be worthy sons and good 
citizens of their adopted country. The Irish peo- 
ple in this great republic, no less American 
citizens than Irish Nationalists, have arrested 
the attention and commanded the admiration of 
the world. The assembly of this day is a proof 
of devotion to a great cause, perhaps unparalleled 
in history. The hardships, the oppressions, and 
the miseries which drove you or your fathers from 
Ireland have wedded your hearts to Ireland's 
cause by ties which neither prosperity nor dis- 
tance nor time can destroy or weaken. No sel- 
fish interests urge you to support the old cause, 
devotion to which brought ruin and death upon 
your forefathers and exile upon yourselves. Sel- 
fishness and worldly interests all point to another 
course as the best; but it is the undying glory of 
Ireland that her exiled sons, in the midst of pros- 
perity and in light of liberty, have yet found time 
to absent themselves from felicity awhile to tell her 
story, and have made it part of their daily life and 
nightly dream to help in working out her redemp- 
tion. The Irish soldier, whose sword was conse- 
crated to the service of America, dreamed as he 
went into battle of the day when his arm, skilled 
in the service of his adopted country, might strike 



754 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

a blow for Irish liberty. The Irish business man, 
who found in one of your gigantic cities scope for 
his enterprise and his industry, looked forward to 
the day when from his store help might go across 
the Atlantic to sustain Ireland's champions on the 
old sod. 

"The Irish laborer, whose brawny arms have 
built your railroads and reared your stately pal- 
aces, in the midst of his labors laid aside his daily 
and weekly mite to help those who were fighting, 
time after time, with one weapon or another, in 
the old cause against the old enemies of Ireland. 
Rich or poor, high or low alike, the Irish in 
America have never forgotten the land from 
whence they sprung, and our people at home, in 
their joys and their sorrows, in their hopes and 
in their fears, turn ever for help and encourage- 
ment and confidence to this great republic upon 
whose fortunes and whose future rest to-day the 
blessings of the Irish race. To assist at this great 
convention of the Irish nation in America, espe- 
cially to stand here, as we do, as the ambassadors 
sent here to represent the Irish nation at home, is 
indeed a supreme honor which we can never over- 
estimate, and can never forget. But it is also an 
honor which bears with it indeed an overwhelm- 

* 

ing sense of responsibility — the responsibility of 
showing to you that we who are conducting this 
movement at home are worthy of your confi- 
dence, and have a right to claim your continued 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 755 

support; the responsibility also of clearly placing 
before you the conditions upon which alone we 
can accept that support or value that confidence. 
" Let me dwell a moment upon these two points. 
Are we worthy of your confidence, and have a 
right to claim your continued support? [An- 
swer: 'Yes!' 'Yes!'] In order to answer 
this question satisfactorily we must show first that 
we are guided by the same principle and ani- 
mated by the same hopes as yourselves : and in 
the second place that our movement is conducted 
on a wise and honest policy. What is the princi- 
ple underlying this movement ? It is the unques- 
tioned recognition of the nationality of Ireland. 
We are working not simply for the removal of 
grievance or the amelioration of the material con- 
dition of our people. Nothing, I think, is plainer 
than, if Ireland had in the past abandoned princi- 
ple, she could easily have bartered her national 
rights to England, and in return have obtained a 
certain amount of material prosperity. If only 
our forefathers had meekly accepted the yoke of 
an alien rule, Ireland's fetters would have been 
gilded, and the hand which for centuries has 
scourged her would have given her as a slave in- 
dulgences and favors which would have perhaps 
saved her from sufferings which are without a 
parallel in the history of oppression. If, at the 
bidding of England, Ireland had ages since aban- 
donedlier religion and consented to merge her 



756 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

nationality, we might to-day be the sleekest slaves 
fettered by the bounty of our conquerors. Scot- 
land, by even a smaller compromise of her na- 
tional existence, has secured for herself compara- 
tive prosperity. But Ireland has preferred rags 
and an unconquered spirit of liberty to favors won 
by national dishonor. 

" The principle embodied in the Irish move- 
ment of to-day is just the same principle which 
was the soul of every Irish movement for the last 
seven centuries — the principle of rebellion against 
the rule of strangers, the principle which Owen 
Roe O'Neill vindicated at Beuburb, which ani- 
mated Tone and Fitzgerald, anc | to which Emmet 
sacrificed a stainless life. Let no man desecrate 
that principle by giving it the ignoble name of 
race hatred. Race hatred is at last an unreason- 
ing passion. I for one believe in the brotherhood 
of nations, and bitter as the memory is of past 
wrongs and of present injustice inflicted upon our 
people by our alien rulers, I assert the principle 
underlying our movement is not the principle of 
revenge for the past, but of justice for the future. 
When a question of that principle arises there 
can be no such thing as compromise. The Irish 
leader who would propose to compromise the 
national claims of Ireland, who would even incline 
for one second to accept as a settlement of our 
demand any concession short of the unquestioned 
recognition of that nationality which has come 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 757 

down to us sanctioned by the blood and tears of 
centuries, would be false to Ireland's history, and 
would forfeit all claims upon your confidence or 
support. Such a contingency can never arise, for 
the man who would be traitor enough to propose 
such a course would find himself no longer a 

o 

leader. No man can barter away the honor of a 
nation. The one great principle of any settle- 
ment of the Irish question must be the recogni- 
tion of the divine right of Irishmen, and Irishmen 
alone, to rule Ireland. This is the principle in 
support of which you are assembled to-day ; this 
is the principle which guides our movement in 
Ireland. But consistently with that principle we 
believe it is possible to bring about a settlement 
honorable to England and Ireland alike, whereby 
the wrongs and miseries of the past may be for- 
gotten ; whereby the chapter of English wrongs 
and of Irish resistance may be closed, and where- 
by a future of freedom and amity between the 
two nations may be inaugurated. 

"Such a settlement we believe was offered to us 
by Mr. Gladstone, and quite apart from the in- 
creased strength which Mr. Gladstone's pro- 
posals, even though temporarily defeated, have 
given to our cause, we have, I think, reason to 
rejoice at the opportunity which they afforded to 
our suffering and exasperated people to show 
the magnanimity of their natures and the un- 
alloyed purity of their love of liberty. What a 

45 



758 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

spectacle Ireland afforded to the world when, at 
last, one great Englishman arose bold enough 
and wise enough to do justice to her character! 
Ages of heartless oppression and bitter wrong, 
hundreds of thousands, of martyrs to Irish freedom, 
ages of stupid religious persecution, ages of de- 
population and state-created famine, never-ending- 
insult and ruthless calumny — all, in that one mo- 
ment, were forgotten ; and the feelings uppermost 
in the hearts of the Irish race at home and abroad 
were gratitude to the aged stateman who simply 
proposed to do justice, and anxiety for a 'blessed 
oblivion of the past.' Who, in the face of the re- 
ception given to the bill of Mr. Gladstone, cramped 
and deformed as it was by humiliating safeguards 
and unnecessary limitations, will dare to say that 
the principle of our movement is merely race 
hatred to England? No! Last April Ireland 
was ready to forget and forgive. She was ready 
to sacrifice many things for peace, so long as the 
one essential principle for which she struggled 
was conceded. She was willing, on the day 
when the portals of her ancient senate-house were 
reopened, to shake hands with her hereditary foe 
and to proclaim peace between the democracies 
of the two nations, whom the Almighty placed 
side by side to be friends, but who had been kept 
apart by the avarice, the passions, and the in- 
justice of the few. What centuries of oppression 
had failed to do seemed about to be accomplished 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 761 

by one word of conciliation, by one act of justice. 
Almost one hundred years before a similar 
opportunity arose. Wolf Tone and the Society 
of the United Irishmen demanded Catholic eman- 
cipation and Parliamentary reform, and in 1795 
Lord Fitzwilliam came to Ireland to carry out a 
policy of justice. Then, just as last April, the Irish 
question was on the very brink of settlement, the 
passion of revenge died out, ancient wrongs were 
forgotten, faction faded at the approach of liberty, 
and for one brief moment the clouds lifted over 
Ireland. But the moment was brief. Lord Fitz- 
william was recalled, and Lord Camden went to 
Ireland and deliberately commenced the policy 
which culminated in the rebellion of 1 798. Fatally 
like, in almost all its details, was the crisis of that 
day to the crisis of to-day. Once again the policy 
of conciliation has been cast aside by England. 
The English viceroy who represented the policy 
of liberty, and who for the first time since 1795 
was greeted with the acclamations of the popu- 
lace in Dublin, has left our shores, and in his 
place has come one bearing the hated name of 
Castlereagh. Once again all thoughts of amity 
with England have been banished from the minds 
of Irishmen, and to-day we are once more face to 
face with our hereditary foes. The same cloud 
has descended once more upon our land, but we 
have a right to call on the world to remember, 
when by and by it perhaps shudders at the dark- 



762 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ness and gloom and horror of the scene, how 
brightly and peacefully the Irish landscape 
smiled during the brief sunshine of the last few 
months. The duty of the moment is clear. We 
have given England the most convincing proof 
that on the concession of liberty we can be trusty 
friends; it now remains for us to prove for the 
thousandth time that as slaves we can be formi- 
dable foes. 

"I assert here to-day that the government of 
Ireland by England is an impossibility, and I be- 
lieve it to be our duty to make it so. Were our 
people tamely to submit to the yoke which has been 
once again placed on their necks they would be un- 
worthy of the blood which they have inherited 
from fathers who preferred poverty to dishonor 
and death to national slavery. But there is no 
danger of such a disgrace. The national move- 
ment is in the hands of a man who can be bold 
as well as cautious, and I claim the confidence 
and support of the Irish in America, not only be- 
cause they are animated by the same principle 
and the same hopes as we are, but because our 
movement at home is conducted on a wise and 
honest policy. Judged by the test of success, 
how does that policy stand? Has our cause for 
one instant stopped in its progress toward 
triumph? When last you assembled in conven- 
tion, two years ago, the Irish party in Parlia- 
ment did not number more than forty; to-day 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 763 

we hold five-sixths of the Irish seats and speak 
in the name of five-sixths of the Irish people in 
Ireland. Two years ago we had arrayed against 
us all English political parties and every English 
statesman ; to-day we have upon our side one of the 
great English political parties, which, though its 
past traditions in Ireland have been evil, still 
represents the party of progress in England, and 
the greatest statesman of the day, who has staked 
his all upon winning for Ireland her national 
rights. Two years ago England had, in truth, in 
Mitchel's phrase, the ear of the world. To-day, 
at last, that ear, so long poisoned with calumnies 
of our people, is now open to the voice of Ireland. 
Two years ago the public opinion of the world — 
aye, and even of this free land of America — was 
doubtful as to the justice of our movement; 
to-day the opinion of the civilized world, and of 
America in particular, is clearly and distinctly 
upon our side. Has the policy which has wrought 
this change been a success, and are the men who 
have raised the Irish cause to its present position 
worthy of your continued confidence and support? 
Well, but for the future, what is the policy and 
who are to be the framers of that policy? 

"Here I come to the second point I mentioned 
at the beginning — namely, the condition upon 
which alone we can value your confidence or ac- 
cept your support. So long as we are true to 
the great principle of Irish nationality, resolutely 



764 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

refusing either to be bought or coerced from the 
rigid adherence to the full measure of national 
right, and so long as we are able to point to our 
past policy as honest and successful, we say we, 
and no others, are entitled to decide for ourselves 
upon Irish soil and upon our own responsibility 
what our policy for the future is to be. This is 
the condition upon which you have given your 
support to us in the past, and it is the condition 
upon which alone we can accept your support for 
the future. Of one thing, however, you may 
rest assured — the policy in Ireland in the near 
future will be one of fight. The chief of the 
present English Government recently prescribed 
as a remedy for Irish discontent twenty years' 
coercion. He forgot the historical fact that since 
the act of union there have been eighty-six years' 
coercion, and that the spirit of the people is 
sterner and higher to-day than ever it was before. 
For coercion we are quite prepared, and to coer- 
cion Lord Salisbury will most assuredly be forced 
to come, although the policy of the new govern- 
ment seems to be to try and stave off stern meas- 
ures for a while. They will, however, soon find 
out their mistake. 

"To the concession of justice and liberty there 
is no alternative but coercion. To imagine that 
Ireland could jog along peacefully for even six 
months under the rule of the new Castlereagh is 
to set down our people as cravens or fools. In 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 7(55 

the coming winter the laws of nature itself will 
forbid the possibility of peace. For the last six 
months the tenant farmers of Ireland have played 
a part too little known and appreciated here. 
They submitted to untold privations and suffer- 
ings and exactions in patience and in silence, lest 
by one word or act of theirs they should em- 
barrass their leaders in Parliament or retard by 
one moment the concession of Home Rule. The 
landlords of Ireland noted but totally misunder- 
stood the meaning of the change of attitude. 
They mistook forbearance and patriotism for cow- 
ardice, and the crowbar brigade once more set 
to work. Still the tenants suffered in silence. 
Mr. Gladstone proposed a land bill which would 
have bought out the landlords at an extravagantly 
high figure, yet the Irish tenants were ready, be- 
cause it was coupled with the concession of Home 
Rule, to pay this exorbitant sum as the price 
to be paid for national freedom. But all motive 
for forbearance on their part is now gone, the 
sands have run through the hour-glass, and the 
old fight between landlord and tenant must revive 
if the people are not to be swept out of existence 
while they are waiting for Home Rule. Once 
more Irish landlords have behaved with unaccount- 
able folly and stupidity. They have once more 
stood between Ireland and her freedom, and have 
refused even an extravagant price for their land, 
because the offer was coupled with the concession, 



766 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of an Irish Parliament. So be it ; I believe the last 
offer has been made to Irish landlordism. The 
ultimate settlement of this question must now be 
reserved for the Parliament of Ireland, and mean- 
time the people must take care to protect them- 
selves and their children. In many parts of Ire- 
land, I assert, rent is to-day an impossibility, and 
in every part of Ireland the rents demanded are 
exorbitant and will not and can not be paid. 
The old struggle will be revived, and before three 
months are over the new government will be 
forced, as of old, in defence of the rents of the 
landlords, to attempt to forge anew the fetters of 
coercion. The process will not be an easy one, 
and, even if successful, we have no reason to fear 
the worst they can do. For my part, indeed, I 
think it but right and fitting that so long as Eng- 
lishmen rule Ireland they should be forced to do 
so by coercion. 

"We have to-day no constitution, and it is well 
that the mask of constitutionalism should be 
torn from the faces of our rulers and the fact 
made patent to the world. In this coming 
struggle, which we honestly believe will be the 
final one, before victory, we claim the assistance 
of our fellow-countrymen and the sympathy of 
all the citizens of this great republic. Gentlemen, 
I have now done. The memory of this day will 
live with me while memory lasts. The effects of 
the work upon which you have been engaged 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 7(57 

will, I believe, live and be felt so long as this 
struggle continues. Your wisdom will guide our 
policy, your courage will inspire our hearts, your 
marvellous union will excite our emulation. You 
have good reason, indeed, to be proud of the 
proceedings of this day. You are, in truth, en- 
gaged in a noble and a sacred work — nothing 
less than championing the weak against the 
strong, the helpless against the powerful, the 
afflicted against the prosperous. You have long 
since earned for yourselves and your adopted 
country the blessings of the poor, and rest 
assured, when at last victory sits upon our cause 
and freedom is again enthroned in Ireland, you 
also will reap a reward ; for the God of the poor 
and the oppressed, the God of justice and of 
mercy, will also increase your prosperity and 
watch eternally over your liberties." 

The convention unanimously adopted the re- 
port of the Committee on Constitution, which 
was practically the same as that which had 
been adopted at the Philadelphia Convention. 
Rev. George W. Pepper, a Methodist Episcopal 
clergyman from Ohio, delivered a fiery and im- 
passioned speech, at the conclusion of which he 
said : " When Parnell finds that he cannot win 
by peaceful methods, and cables us to come over 
and help him, I assure you that there will be one 
vacant pulpit in the United States." 

There was a hot fight and an exciting oratorical 



7fi8 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

wrangle over the election of a president of the 
national organization. President Egan, Alex- 
ander Sullivan, of Chicago, T. Brennan, of Ne- 
braska, Mr. O'Connor, of Elmira, N. Y., Judge 
Donnelly, of Wisconsin, and others, favored 
the selection of John Fitzgerald, of Lincoln, 
Nebraska, while John Devoy, of New York, 
Michael J. Ryan, of Philadelphia, Dr. William B. 
Wallace, of New York, Fathers James A. Bre- 
honey, Thomas Barry, and William Meagher, of 
Philadelphia, and others, - urged the wisdom of 
making Hugh McCaffrey, of Philadelphia, the 
choice of the convention. Mr. McCaffrey, twice 
emphatically declined to be a candidate and 
moved to make the nomination of Mr. Fitzgerald 
unanimous. This, however, his supporters would 
not listen to, and they insisted on a vote being 
taken. The following was the vote in detail: 

States and Provinces. McCaffrey. Fitzgerald. 

Vermont I 

Florida. I 

Minnesota 13 

Tennessee 2 21 

Rhode Island 8 

Wisconsin I 57 

Kansas 4 

Illinois 2 77 

Nebraska 13 

New Jersey 18 7 

Ohio 5° 

Ontario '7 

Quebec 7 

California n 

Colorado 2 

Alabama 4 

Connecticut 1 IO 

Delaware . 4 

Georgia IO 

Indiana , 22 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 769 

States and Provinces. McCaffrey. Fitzgerald. 

Kentucky 14 

Maryland 17 

District of Columbia 15 

Montana 6 

Louisiana 73 

Texas 9 

Massachusetts 12 32 

Michigan 70 

Missouri 28 

Iowa 17 26 

Pennsylvania 107 15 

New York 80 63 

Total 244 703 

On the motion of Mr. McCaffrey the election 
of Mr. Fitzgerald was declared unanimous. The 
other officers elected were : First Vice-President, 
Hugh McCaffrey, of Philadelphia, Pa.; Second 
Vice-President, Rev. P. A. McKenna, of Boston, 
Mass. ; Third Vice-President, Patrick Martin, of 
Baltimore, Md.; Treasurer, Rev. Charles O'Reilly, 
D. D., Detroit, Michigan; Secretary, John B. 
Sutton, Lincoln, Nebraska. 

Chairman Fitzgerald here introduced John 
Deasy, M. P., who received a hearty welcome 
from the delegates. His address, like that of Mr. 
Redmond, was liberally punctuated with the 
applause of his hearers. At its close he said: 

" We have had coercion in Ireland every year 
for the last eighty-six years. We find now that 
two can play at that game. We defy them with 
all their brute force, with all their police spies and 
informers, to get the better of us in the future 
if they attempt oppression again. We do not 
care a jot what laws are passed to crush the Irish 



770 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

people. We know from past experience that our 
organization is superior to any effort ot the Eng- 
lish Government to destroy it. We know that 
to espouse the Irish cause in Ireland is to run the 
risk of imprisonment, and perhaps the gallows. 
We know that the men whose names I see before 
me (Allen, Larkin and O'Brien) were foully and 
brutally murdered for espousing the same cause 
we advocate — and we tell the British Government 
that there are thousands of men in Ireland pre- 
pared to follow in their footsteps." 

Michael Davitt, in summing up the results of 
the convention said : " I can't, however, deny my- 
self the pleasure of saying that I began my 
part of the work leading up to this convention by 
predicting confidently what the result would be. 
I have said that a division in this convention would 
be impossible, because the enemies of Ireland 
looked for it. I read the other day that Mr. 
Finerty and myself were at the head of opposing 
factions, and one of the keenest pleasures of my 
life has been to witness the disappointment of 
the enemies of Ireland who have made this and 
kindred false statements. Mr. Finerty and myself 
have, in the most friendly way possible, crossed 
swords ; but I don't know an honester man than 
Mr. Finerty, nor a more sincere friend to Ireland, 
either at home or in America. We are not here 
to dictate to any one, but to explain to you our 
policy, and to ask our friends to believe in our 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 771 

sincerity and fidelity. I have to thank the late 
administration, Mr. Egan's, on behalf of Ireland 
and the Parliamentary party, for its service to the 
Irish cause. By your moderation you will appeal 
strongly to that American sympathy which has 
been such a help to us at home. Trust in us to 
do the best thing in any circumstances to keep the 
flag flying. We are bound to win, for we have 
one cause, one movement, one means, one hope 
and one leader. Thus united, defeat is impos- 
sible." 

The following "were appointed as the State 
Delegates or National Executive Committee : 

Alabama, Rev. Edward Kerwin ; California, 
Dr. M. C. O'Toole ; Connecticut, P. W. Wren ; 
Colorado, Robert Morris ; Louisiana, Timothy 
Maroney ; Indiana, Michael J. Burns ; Nebraska, 
Patrick Egan ; Georgia, John F. Armstrong ; 
Rhode Island, Hugh J. Carroll; Iowa, D. Maher ; 
Virginia, R. F. O'Beirne; District of Columbia, 
Thomas H. Walsh; Kentucky, Matthew O'Do- 
herty ; Delaware, O. J. Hession ; New Jersey, 
Michael B. Holmes; Kansas, Donat O'Brien; 
Michigan, Dr. J. E. Scallon; Texas, A. J. Malloy; 
Wisconsin, James G. Donnelly; Maryland, John 
Norman ; Missouri, Dr. Thomas O'Reilly ; Massa- 
chusetts, J. J. Donovan; Minnesota, W. L. Kelly; 
Montana, D. J. Hennessey ; Pennsylvania, Michael 
J. Ryan; Ohio, W. J. Gleason ; New York, Dr. 
Edward Malone ; Illinois, Daniel Corkery; Ontario, 



772 GLADSTONE- t>ARNEI. !.. 

R. B. Teefy; Florida, B. E. McMurry; Mississippi, 
Edward McGinty ; New Hampshire, James Cash- 
man ; Oregon Territory, M. J. Griffin ; Tennessee, 
P. J. Flanigan ; Vermont, B. F. Kelly; Washington 
Territory, W. D. O'Toole; Quebec, Canada, Charles 
McCarron ; Manitoba, Canada, H. J. Clorane. 

John E. Fitzgerald, the newly-elected Presi- 
dent of the Irish National League of America, 
was born in County Limerick, Ireland, in the year 
1829, and at the age of fifteen years emigrated to 
the United States. Soon after his arrival he se- 
cured employment on a farm on Long Island, 
where he remained for several seasons, for the 
sum of seven dollars per month. He had within 
him, however, those principles of endurance, fru- 
gality, and industry which pointed to a brighter 
future, and having saved sufficient money to go to 
the West, he cast his lot, in 1869, in Lincoln, 
Nebraska, where he has since risen to be one 
of the most honored, as well as one of the most 
wealthy men in that State. He is the President of 
the First National Bank of Lincoln, of the First 
National Bank of Plattsmouth, of the First 
National Bank of Greenwood, and of the First 
National Bank of O'Neill City. Besides his 
many financial interests, Mr. Fitzgerald owns the 
Waveland stock farm at Lincoln, comprising nine 
thousand acres of land, stocked with shorthorn 
cattle and blooded horses. He is also the Presi- 
dent of the Nebraska stockyards at Lincoln, 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 773 

besides being largely concerned in railroad enter- 
prises. He built the Burlington and Missouri 
River route from Plattsmouth west, and is the 
owner of the extension of railroad from Denver, 
Colorado, to Baxter Springs, Kansas, now in pro- 
cess of construction. His is a very busy life, and 
he has constantly in his employ from two thous- 
and to four thousand men. Mr. Fitzgerald owes 
his wealth to a spirit of industry. Some idea may 
be had of the extent of his fortune when it is 
stated that his assessment list in Plattsmouth alone 
amounts to $160,000. Notwithstanding his large 
property interests he is one of the most modest 
of men and has a particular aversion to newspa- 
per notoriety. Surrounded by so many interests 
to engage his attention, yet he has not forgotten 
the land of his nativity and has always shown an 
earnest zeal for the cause of Ireland and his 
fellow-countrymen. It was, therefore, a merited 
compliment in electing him to the presidency of 
the National League. 

John P. Sutton, the Secretary of the Irish 
National League of America, was born in Clon- 
mel, Ireland,' in 1845, about the time of the pota- 
to-rot, a visitation which caused the gaunt features 
of famine to spread throughout the land. His 
parents were Michael Sutton and Mary Ann 
O'Shaughnessy. His father was, for many years, 
a grain merchant in Waterford, but emigrated to 
Quebec, Canada, where he filled a position in the 



774 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Union Bank. His son, John P. Sutton, arrived in 
this country a short time afterwards and entered 
the United States Army, serving for some time on 
the western frontier. After acting as Sergeant- 
Major of the 1 8th U. S. Infantry, he became First 
Sergeant of Company H of the same regiment, 
and served in that capacity until he was honorably 
discharged at the end of his term of enlistment. 
In 1869 he went to Quebec to visit his family, and 
shortly afterward married and settled in Canada, 
where he resided for about sixteen years. While 
there he served in various positions of trust and 
honor, and during the last four years of his resi- 
dence in the Dominion he was engaged as an 
accountant for Messrs. Ross & Co., the wealthiest 
mercantile firm in the Province of Quebec. 
While a resident of Canada he took an active 
part in Irish National affairs, and was a frequent 
contributor to the Irish Sentinel, of Quebec, the 
Irish Canadian, of Toronto, and the Daily Post, 
of Montreal, besides working for the cause in 
other ways. He was the first President of the 
Quebec Branch of the Irish National League of 
America, and retained that position as long as he 
remained a resident of the country. He was also 
among- those who inaugurated the custom of cele- 
brating Emmet's Day in Quebec, a celebration 
which continues to be a national festival there. 
To his efforts, in a great measure, was due the 
inspiration and enthusiasm which took the place 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 775 

of the lethargy which, for a time, appeared to per- 
vade the Irish people in Canada in regard to the 
cause of the Nationalists. He was requested by 
the Executive of the National League to travel 
through the Dominion and organize branches of 
the League, and, at the same time, start 
collections for the Parliamentary Fund. He 
addressed public meetings at Toronto, Hamilton, 
and Ottawa, in Ontario, and Halifax in Nova 
Scotia, besides addressing private meetings of 
Irishmen in other towns, going as far as St. John's, 
New Brunswick, and Portland, Maine. The suc- 
cess attending his labors everywhere proved the 
wisdom of sending a messenger to the Canadian 
brethren, and showed that Mr. Sutton was the 
man above all others for the mission. While at 
the Boston Convention of the Land League, Can- 
ada had about five delegates with a financial rep- 
resentation of under four hundred dollars, and 
that mainly contributed by the Quebec branches ; 
yet, at the Chicago Convention, the Canadian del- 
egates numbered twenty-five, and their contribu- 
tions reached nearly eight thousand dollars. 
Besides this amount a large share of Canadian 
contributions were sent direct to Ireland. This 
was a grand commentary on the work accom- 
plished by Mr. Sutton. The Toronto Branch of 
the League, founded by him, in point of efficiency, 
is second to none in America, and, if its uncon- 
genial surroundings are taken into consideration, 
46 



776 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

it might reasonably claim first place. It raised 
three thousand dollars in funds, and successfully 
dispelled the prejudice and ill-will which strove to 
crush its infancy. 

On the resignation of the Secretary of the 
National League, he accepted the position and 
filled its duties until May, 1886, when he practi- 
cally resigned (although nominally considered as 
Secretary) to assume the position of cashier of 
the Fitzgerald and Mallory Construction Com- 
pany, and paymaster of the Denver, Memphis 
and Atlantic Railroad Company. This necessi- 
tated his removal to south-eastern Kansas. 
He had no expectation of again assuming the 
secretaryship of the Irish National League, but 
at the request of President John Fitzgerald, 
supplemented by the persuasion of many promi- 
nent friends, he consented to a re-election. As a 
consequence he resigned his position with the 
Construction Company and Railway Company, 
in order that he might give his whole attention 
to the work of the League. 

While in Canada, Mr. Sutton, as already 
intimated, labored hard for the success of the 
Irish Cause: The Irish Canadian of Aug. 23, 
1885, m referring to the selection of Mr. Sutton 
as the organizer of the League in Canada, says : 
" The convention made a happy choice in select- 
ing Mr. Sutton for this work. He is able, 
eloquent and fearless, true as steel, and admirably 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 777 

adapted for the labor before him — a labor of love 
in his case — the dream of his life and his highest 
earthly aspiration. In the long range of our 
acquaintance — and in our day we have met many 
of the most devoted of Ireland's sons — we do not 
remember one more ardently attached — one who 
clung more tenaciously to the varying fortunes 
of the Old Land — one more ready, at all times 
and under all circumstances, to defend it against 
wrong and uphold its honor, than John P. Sutton. 
This true-hearted Irishman has suffered for the 
faith that is in him — has suffered because he had 
the courage of his convictions — but he is never- 
theless ready to make himself useful where he 
can be of service. His brothers at Chicago have 

O 

honored him with a sacred trust, and our brothers 
in Canada should give effect to his mission — which 
will be in reality giving effect to the efforts of 
Mr. Parnell and those who are assisting him in 
the struggle for freedom." 

One of the letters read at the convention was 
from the Rev. Patrick Cronin, of Buffalo, N. Y., 
the well-known editor of the Catholic Union and 
Times, whose active participation in the work of 
the Irish National League has made his name 
a familiar one throughout the country. He was 
born, March i, 1837, near Adare, County Lim- 
erick, Ireland, a spot rich in historic ruins, where 
Gerald Griffin spent many of his young years and 
wrote some of his beautiful poems. At the age 



778 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

of twelve years he came with his father to the 
United States, and selecting an ecclesiastical life, 
he received a thorough training. His classical 

o o 

studies were pursued at St. Louis University, and 
his theological course taken at Cape Girardeau, 
Missouri. In the old cathedral at St. Louis, in 
December, 1862, he received priestly orders, and 
was assigned to the Church of the Annunciation, 
in that city, as an assistant to the Rev. P. J. Ryan, 
now Archbishop of Philadelphia. His next pas- 
torate was at Hannibal, Missouri, where he re- 
mained for four years, during which time his 
ministrations were largely attended, and he gath- 
ered about him a laroe circle of friends. He then 

o 

returned to St. Louis, and became the pastor of 
the Church of the Immaculate Conception. He 
resigned his pastorate in St. Louis to come East 
in 1870, and took the Chair of Belles-Lettres in 
the Seminary of Our Lady of Angels, now the 
literary department of Niagara University. After 
remaining in that position for two years, he re- 
moved to Buffalo, New York, in October, 1872, 
where he has since been attached to St. Joseph's 
Cathedral. On the 1st of April, 1873, he assumed 
the editorial charge of the Catholic Union and 
Times, which was then in its infancy, and which 
was then, as now, the official journal of the Bishop 
of Buffalo. From that time forward the paper 
rapidly increased in its influence for good, and its 
trenchant editorials soon gained for it an unusual 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE 779 

prominence with resultant benefits. This brief 
allusion to the various positions held by Father 
Cronin does not, however, convey any adequate 
idea of the many results achieved during his faith- 
ful and active life. His work in the cause of Ire- 
land, aside from his labors in other directions, has 
won for him a name that shall be handed down 
with honor to the coming generations. His love 
for the land of his nativity, and his sympathy for 
his afflicted countrymen, have been shown in un- 
numbered instances, and he has been unceasing 
in his endeavors to lift up the fallen and aid the 
downtrodden and oppressed. 

It is not alone in his editorial sphere that Father 
Cronin has shone. His musical voice has been 
heard many times on the lecture platform, and his 
rhetorical eloquence has often held an audience 
almost spellbound. As a poet, also, he has a 
wide reputation, many of his productions winning 
high praise. In 1877 he spent six months abroad 
in company with Bishop Ryan, and the rich fields 
of study, offered by a European trip, found in 
him a ready student. Since his return he has 
been at the helm of the Catholic Union and Times, 
and with voice and pen has been doing his share 
in furthering- the interests of the church and his 
countrymen. 

A prominent figure at all the conventions in 
which I have been a participant was John Boyle 
O'Reilly, of Boston, Massachusetts, the orator, 



7gO GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

editor, poet, and patriot. He is still in the prime of 
a vigorous manhood and has had a most eventful 
life. He was born in Dowth Castle, County 
Meath, Ireland, in 1844, and spent his boyhood 
days there, studying from books with his father 
and mother. From their store of legends and 
sonos, and from them, he first learned to love 
Ireland, a love that has grown brighter as the 
years have rolled along. When still quite young- 
he went to England and obtained a position as 
reporter on the newspapers in the manufacturing 
districts, where he acquired that intimate knowl- 
edge of workingmen and that sympathy with 
them which still clings to him, and is only less 
strong than his national enthusiasm. But his 
native land was still first in his heart, and in 
1863, when nineteen years old, well educated and 
with an ardent temperament, he devoted himself 
entirely to his country's service by enlisting in 
the Tenth (Prince of Wales) Hussars, Col. Valen- 
tine Baker's crack regiment. His purpose, how- 
ever, was not to fight for England, but for Ireland, 
by propagating the principles of Fenianism. At 
that time, whenever half a dozen Irishmen were 
gathered together, one of them, at least, was sure 
to be a Fenian or Irish Republican, pledged to 
secure liberty for his country ; and so young 
O'Reilly had many opportunities, which he never 
failed to improve, of rekindling the latent spark 
which lingered in the hearts of his countrymen. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 781 

So well did he inspire the throbbing for liberty 
that the time soon came when it seemed as if 
the blow might be struck, and Ireland might be 
free But, as has happened scores of times be- 
fore in her history, the plot for the deliverance of 
Ireland was betrayed by a spy, and the men who 
would have broken her chains were arrested for 
hio-h treason, and thrown into prison. This was 
in a i866, and for days all Ireland was in a state of 
terror, as warrant after warrant was served, and 
• cell after cell filled with her patriotic sons. Mr. 
O'Reilly, of course, was one of the first to be 
taken,, and then came the trials and sentences, 
and he found himself doomed to imprisonment 
for life, a dark and dreary prospect to most men, 
but not to one who believed that he was to sutler 
for his native land. The punishment, however, 
was afterwards commuted to a penal servitude 
of twenty years, although such a change could 
hardly be called a merciful one. After his arrest 
and conviction, Colonel Baker, who commanded 
the Tenth Hussars, exclaimed, "O Reilly^has 
ruined the best regiment in the British army. 

The young patriot received his punishment, it 
it could be called such, without flinching, and as 
England's prisons were crowded that year, he 
was successively an inmate of Chatham. Ports- 
mouth, Portland and Dartmoor At the latter 
place he and his brother Republicans had the 
sad pleasure of performing the last offices for 



782 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

the American prisoners of war who were shot in 
cold blood, in 1814, by their British guards. The 
bodies of the slain had been flung into shallow 
graves, and when O'Reilly and his comrades 
were in the prison the bones of the Americans 
lay bleaching on the ground in one of the prison 
yards, having been dragged from their resting- 
place by swine. The Irish Republicans collected 
the bones and buried them, and upon the rude 
stone, with which they were allowed to mark the 
grave, they carved the inscription : "Dulce et de- ' 
corum est pro patria mori." 

In 1867 Mr. O'Reilly and his compatriots were 
banished to Western Australia, "a land blessed 
by God and blighted by man," as Mr. O'Reilly 
says, but he learned to love "that fair land and 
dear land in the south," with its soft climate, and 
strange scentless flowers and bright songless birds. 
But his experience on board a convict-ship, as re- 
lated by himself in a sketch written on his ar- 
rival in America, in 1869, will, perhaps, give a 
more vivid idea of the sufferings of himself and 
his companions. "In October, '6j," says Mr. 
O'Reilly, "there were in Dartmoor prison six 
convicts who, to judge from their treatment, must 
be infinitely darker criminals than even the mur- 
derous-looking wretches around them. Those 
men were distinguished by being allotted an extra 
amount of work, hunger, cold and curses, together 
with the thousand bitter aids that are brought to 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 783 

bear in the enforcement of English prison dis- 
cipline. At the time I now recall, three of those 
men were down in the social depths, indeed ; with 
one exception, they were in prison for life; and 
even in prison were considered as the most guilty 
and degraded there. This unusually harsh course 
was the result of a dream they had been dream- 
ing for years — as they wheeled the heavy brick 
cars, as they hewed the frozen granite, as they 
breathed on their cold fingers in the dark penal 
cells, in the deep swamp-drain, awake and asleep 
— always dreaming of liberty! That thought had 
never left them. They had attempted to realize 
it, and had failed. But the wild, stealthy thought 
would come back into their hearts and be cher- 
ished there. This was the result — hunger, cold 
and curses. The excitement was dead. There 
was nothing left now but patience and submission. 
I have said that the excitement, even of failure, 
was dead; but another and stronger excitement 
took its place. A rumor went through the prison 
— in the weirdly mysterious way in which rumors 
do go through a prison. However it came is a 
mystery, but there did come a rumor to the prison 
— even to the dark cells — of a ship sailing for 
Australia." 

The departure of the ship from English shores 
for the penal colony in Australia is related by 
Mr. O'Reilly in graphic style. The political 
prisoners were separated, and he was among the 



784 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

former. " I was appointed monitor of our men," 
says John Boyle, "which appointment gave rise 
to Dan Bradley's grand prize conundrum, 'Why 
must we look to O'Reilly for our deliverance? 
Because he is a Fenian monitor! ' " 

After being two weeks out, a meeting was 
called, many projects discussed and three things 
decided on. The pious and patriotic project re- 
solved upon was that a prayer should be offered 
each night for Ireland, and this prayer, as Mr. 
O'Reilly now recalls, was as follows : 

" O God, who art the arbiter of the destiny of 
nations, and who rulest the world in Thy great 
wisdom, look down now, we beseech Thee, from 
Thy holy place, on the sufferings of our poor 
country. Scatter her enemies, O Lord, and con- 
found their evil projects. Hear us, O God ! hear 
the earnest cry of our people, and give them 
strength and fortitude to dare and suffer in their 
holy cause. Send her help, O Lord ! from Thy 
holy place. And from Zion protect her. Amen." 

Amid all the gloom of the convict-ship, Mr. 
O'Reilly continued to cheer his comrades with 
hope, and the genius of the gifted young poet 
and journalist flashed forth every week in the 
columns of the Wild Goose, a newspaper which 
he edited for the benefit of his fellow-convicts. 
" Saturday," he says, " was publishing day. On 
Sunday afternoon we remained below, sat around 
the berths, and heard read the Wild Goose, as 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 785 

the newspaper was named. We published seven 
weekly numbers of it. Amid the glim glare of 
the lamp the men at night would group strangely 
on extemporized seats. The yellow light fell 
down on the group of dark forms, throwing a ghastly 
glare on the pale faces of the men as they listened 
with blazing eyes to Davis' ' Fontenoy,' or the 
'Clansman's Wild Address to Shane's Head.' 
Ah ! that is another of the grand picture- 
memories that come only to those who deal with 
life's stern realities." 

The story of his escape from Australia affords 
another interesting chapter in Mr. O'Reilly's 
eventful life. He was not content to stay in 
captivity while the spirit of liberty burned within, 
and hence, in 1869, aided by friends, and after 
encountering many hardships he escaped from 
Australia, and after a series of adventures reached 
Philadelphia. For some time he kept the story 
to himself, fearing to implicate those who aided 
him, but at last he told all about his escape. 
Making off in the night, he started across the 
Indian Ocean in an open boat without food or 
drink, and for three days and nights, had not 
only to fight hunger and thirst, but the sharks 
that charged on his frail craft. Twice, when at 
sea, ships bore down upon him and then sailed 
away again, unmindful of his signals. All this 
time keen-scented men were on his track and 
an escaped felon of the lowest type was his 



786 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

companion, declaring that, unless, he, too, was 
taken along he would expose O'Reilly's plan of 
escape. At last both men were taken aboard the 
American whaler " Gazelle," of New Bedford, 
under the command of Captain David R. Gifford. 
At the Cape, South Africa, O'Reilly's surrender 
was demanded by a British sea-captain, but his 
Yankee friend, the captain of the whaler, hid him 
in his cabin ; and then throwing a grindstone and 
O'Reilly's hat overboard, he swore that the Irish 
rebel had jumped into the sea and committed 
suicide. The British officers on the search 
having heard the splash, believed the story, and 
Captain Gifford, lending him twenty guineas, all 
the money he had, put him on the American ship 
"Sapphire," of Boston, bound for Liverpool, 
giving him the papers of a shipwrecked sailor. 
In September, O'Reilly landed in Liverpool, but 
soon found himself in danger and sailed for 
Philadelphia. Shortly after his arrival in the 
United States he earned money enough to repay 
the captain of the whaler, and to him dedicated 
his first volume of "Sonos from the Southern 
Seas," but a copy of the volume sent to that hu- 
mane and gallant seaman arrived two hours after 
the latter had died, in the West India Islands, from 
yellow fever. On learning this Mr. O'Reilly 
wrote a graceful and poetic article on the captain, 
entitled : "A tribute paid too late." 

On his arrival in Philadelphia he. started at once 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 787 

for New York, where he made some money in 
writing poems and magazine articles ; for such 
a gifted mind as that possessed by Mr. O'Reilly 
could not long remain inactive, and his brilliant 
contributions and poetical writings won for him 
prompt and nattering recognition, and he soon 
took rank among the men of letters. He went to 
Boston in 1870 and naturally found his way to the 
newspaper office, and soon had a position on the 
Pilot, of which he is now the editor. He became 
a naturalized citizen of the Republic, his country- 
men made him welcome to their homes, and, in a 
year or two, he found himself prosperous and 
growing famous. He is a member of the Papyrus 
Club, the Press Club, and several other literary 
organizations of Boston. It is, however, as editor- 
in-chief of the Boston Pilot, one of the oldest Irish 
Catholic newspapers in the country, he made his 
fame most enduring, and his conduct of that paper 
since the wreck of Donahoe's establishment has 
been alike honorable and successful. He is a 
contributor to the pages of the North American 
Review, the Catholic Quarterly Review and other 
leading magazines. Amid all his literary labors 
he is still the devoted patriot and finds occasional 
time to give to the service of the old land. In 
such work his voice is no less effective than his 
pen — his words having the same practical incisive 
and forcible meaning. In his views of the Irish 
question he is inclined to be conservative, though 



788 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

very positive in his support of Parnell. In 1885 
Mr. O'Reilly was invited to Ottawa, Canada, to 
deliver an address on St. Patrick's Day. The 
Dominion authorities saw no objection ; but when 
application was made to England for an authori- 
zation for Mr. O'Reilly to enter the British 
Dominions, Earl Granville, on consultation with 
Sir W. Harcourt, declared British territory closed 
against " O'Reilly, one of the persons convicted 
for complicity in the Fenian Rebellion of 1866." 
It is a fact that the cultured Boston poet is down 
on the British records as an escaped convict, No. 

9^34- 

In regard to his many noble efforts in further- 
ing the cause of Irish liberty it is hardly necessary 
to refer. He has lectured in all the principal 
cities of the country in aid of the Irish Parlia- 
mentary Fund ; and has made a large number 
of addresses under the auspices of the Irish 
National League. In fact, working in season and 
out of season, in order that the glorious time may 
be consummated when Ireland shall take her 
place among the nations of the earth. 

Mr. O'Reilly is very popular in social circles 
in Boston. He is a fine athlete, and a man of 
striking personal appearance, still upon the sunny 
side of forty, and as strong in body as he is gifted 
in mind. He is noted for his soldierly bearing, 
and it is natural enough that his step should 
be soldierly ; for it is not many years x since the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 789 

fingers that now hold his pen were familiar with 
the sabre hilt, and since the feet that now tread 
the quiet streets of Boston obeyed the call of the 
bugle in an English barrack. Change of fortune 
has not altered him much in manner, and seems 
to have made little difference in his disposition. 
He still sits silent in company, immovable except 
as to his restless dark eyes, until somebody asks 
him a question ; but then the heavy brows are 
lifted, the head is raised, and the answer comes 
usually in the Milesian form of another question, 
sometimes paradoxical, sometimes a little dog- 
matic, but always striking. While, as stated, he is 
a firm believer in Parnell and his methods, there 
is something more in his ardent nature; he is 
every inch a patriot, and does not hesitate to ex- 
press his views of English misrule in plain terms 
that cannot admit of any possible misconstruction. 
He scorns to beg amnesty of the British Govern- 
ment, for when that subject was recently broached 
by some of his admirers in the old land, he 
very promptly cabled to them the instructions: 
" Kindly withdraw the name of O'Reilly." He is 
a credit to his race, an honor to his country, an 
ornament to journalism — possessed of indomitable 
will, pluck and energy, and what is a proud tribute 
to his noble character and genius is, that in Bos- 
ton, where he still lives, no name stands higher 
among American men of letters. 

It would be almost superfluous to refer to his 



790 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

many literary labors. His poem on the Statue 
of Liberty has been so widely read and admired, 
together with his other works, that the name of 
John Boyle O'Reilly has become familiar from 
one end of the land to the other. A gifted and 
estimable wife is the companion of his literary 
labors. Of his country he sings: 

" My first dear love, all dearer for thy grief! 

My land that has no peer in all the sea 
For verdure, vale or river, flower or leaf — 

If first to no man else, thou'rt first to me. 
New loves may come with duties, but the first 

Is deepest yet — the mother's breath and smiles; 
Like that kind face and breast where I was nursed 

Is my poor land — the Niobe of Isles." 

"Priests who could furnish the surety of two 
freeholders for their peaceful conduct," writes 
Charles Gavan Duffy, of Ireland, "The House 
of Hanover," "and did not outrage good-taste by 
showing themselves in public, were permitted to 
perform their functions in by-streets and back 
places ; provided always that they are careful to 
ring no bell and erect no steeple, these indul- 
gences being .absolutely incompatible with the 
safety of church and throne." There is a fine 
church going up in Chicago, Saint Gabriel's, whose 
steeple will be built and whose bell will be rung 
for one of the truest sons of Ireland in America, 
one whose name, face and voice are familiar in 
the land of his fathers as well as in that of his 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 791 

birth. Maurice J. Dorney would have found 
even the moderate irksomeness of the toleration 
of the House of Hanover intolerable, and the 
more rigorous days of an Elizabeth or a William 
would have made his another name on the glorious 
roll of Irish martyrdom. He was born in Spring- 
field, Massachusetts, in 1 85 1 . His acute mind and 
decided traits of character marked him for the 
priesthood, and after graduation at St. Mary's 
Seminary, Baltimore, he was ordained priest by 
Bishop Foley in the cathedral of Chicago in 1874. 
For two years his zeal was devoted to Saint John's 
parish in that city, and then he was sent to Lock- 
port, Illinois, as parish priest, remaining there 
until 1880, when the needs of the new population 
in the south-western part of Chicago induced 
Archbishop Feehan to recall him for city work. 
Under his guidance his people are erecting the 
edifice whose bell and steeple will be a striking 
feature of that bustling region ; and the commo- 
dious- school-house that rises near the church 
indicates that Father Dorney is as interested in 
the intellects of his flock as in their spiritual wel- 
fare. The studies which a thoroughly practical 
priest must make in the poverty that fills our 
great cities are well calculated to make him in- 
quire into the causes which have sent to our 
country so much of poverty among a people 
naturally virtuous and universally hard-working. 
Of all men in the United States who should be 

47 



792 GLADSTONE— PA RNELL. 

sympathizers with the divinely planted instincts 
of liberty in a race, the priest has the best oppor- 
tunity for knowing that it is English government 
in Ireland that has sown poverty over that fertile 
land, and that it was brutal laws, ingeniously 
devised, that prostrated those natural industries 
whose destruction is the chief cause of the Irish 
.want of mechanical skill. . It was inevitable that 
a man of Father Dorney's mind and sympathy 
should not only perceive the economic truth at 
the bottom of all Irish misery, but that he should 
strive to aid the race from which he sprang to 
efface the inheritance of misery English govern- 
ment has bestowed upon so many generations of 
the Irish people. Father Dorney's services to the 
Irish cause, modest, unwearying and effective, led 
to his election as President of the Land League 
in Illinois, in 1881. When it was found that he 
had been chosen a delegate to the Philadelphia 
Convention of 1883, there was a general desire 
that his genial countenance, sonorous voice, happy 
humor and trained faculties should be employed 
in the chair of that imposing and difficult assem- 
bly. No one who saw r him in that position 
will ever forget the skill and tact with which du- 
ties exceedingly delicate were discharged. He 
had to guide that vast body through the most 
dangerous passages in its course ; and a steadier 
hand or clearer head never held a helm through 
deeps or shallows. When he visited Ireland two 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 793 

years ago, he received everywhere the cordial and 
orateful greeting to which he was so well entitled. 
Bright as a newly coined dollar, honest and 
fearless in his outspoken exposure of frauds, how- 
ever great, or of parasites, however loathsome and 
despicable, a young man with a future before him, 
and one who has already held positions of honor 
and grave responsibility in Irish organizations, is 
Michael J. Ryan, of Philadelphia, Pa. He was 
born in that city on the 13th of June, 1862. His 
father, James Ryan, who died in 1878, was one 
of the leaders of the Fenian Brotherhood, and a 
centre of the Philadelphia, Brian Boru, and Grat- 
tan Circles. His son, imbued with the same pa- 
triotic feelings, early evinced a love for Ireland 
and her institutions, and in September, October 
and November, 1885, he travelled through the 
Western and Southern States, lecturing in aid of 
the National League, going as far as Minneapolis 
in the North-west, and in the South-west travel- 
ling as far as San Antonio, Texas. At the Chicago 
Convention he was unanimously chosen as Chair- 
man of the Pennsylvania delegation, and was also 
selected as the State Delegate, one of the best 
evidences of the respect in which he is held among 
those with whom he lives. 

When a meeting of citizens was called in Inde- 
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, to raise money to 
further the cause of Parnell and his co-laborers, 
the mayor of the city was called upon to preside, 



794 GLADSTONE-PARNELL. 

and Mr. Ryan was honored with the Secretary- 
ship, while the treasurer was Anthony J. Drexel, 
the leading banker of this country. Mr. Ryan was 
afterwards chosen Secretary of the Citizens' Com- 
mittee, and as a result of their labors the sum of 
thirty-five thousand dollars was raised and trans- 
mitted to Rev. Dr. O'Reilly, the Treasurer of the 
League in America. 

In the fall election of 1886 Mr. Ryan was the 
nominee of the Democratic Party for the First 
Congressional District of Pennsylvania, although 
not of the required age when he received the 
honor. Although the district is Republican by a 
large majority, Mr. Ryan had the courage to en- 
ter the canvass, and though defeated, as he ex- 
pected, yet he polled a large and complimentary 
vote. Mr. Ryan is a member of the Philadelphia 
Bar in active practice, and gives promise of great 
usefulness to the cause of Ireland. 

"A man in the gap" has always been our 
friend, Rev. Geo. W. Pepper, a highly respected 
minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, who 
in his every look and motion shows the energy 
and activity of the educated intelligent Irishman. 
He was born fifty-two years ago in the townland 
of Ballinagarrick, near the village of Gilford, 
and not far from Portadown, in the County Down, 
Ireland. Although he has been a resident of the 
United States the greater portion of his life, he 
has been and still is one of the warmest ad- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 795 

vocates for Home Rule in his native land. His 
father was an Episcopalian in faith, and master 
of an Orange Lodge, which to this day meets in 
the same house where Mr. Pepper was born. 
His father died while Mr. Pepper was quite 
young, and hence he was brought up by his 
mother, who in faith was a Presbyterian, but in 
politics a Republican, and in 1848 was a devoted 
supporter of the glorious Young Irelanders. 

His mother died in 1853, and in the following 
year he came to America and immediately 
entered Kenyon College, Ohio, for the purpose 
of studying theology. After remaining there 
one year, he became connected with the North 
Ohio Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, and was stationed at the town of Keene. 
He continued in the regular work of the ministry 
until the outbreak of the Civil War, when he 
thought it was his duty to fly to the aid of his 
adopted country, first as Captain and then as 
Chaplain. He served until the close of the war, 
participating in a number of engagements, and 
took part in the " March to the Sea." While in 
the army he also acted as correspondent for 
the Louisville Courier-Journal, the Cincinnati 
Commercial, and sent a number of letters to the 
New York Times. 

Upon leaving the army he re-entered the 
ministry of the M. E. Church, filling a number of 
leading pulpits in Ohio, and still continues in the 



796 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

sacred office. Several years ago he made a visit 
to Ireland, and, in the town where he was born, 
lectured upon " America and the Americans.'' 
The next day he was visited by two policemen 
and warned to leave the country. He pulled out 
his passport with the signature of James G. Blaine 
as Secretary of State, and threatened that if he 
was arrested he would telegraph to him, when 
they immediately retired. 

Mr. Pepper is one of the most graceful am! 
impassioned speakers that has ever appeared 
upon a public platform. He is a true orator, full 
of fervor and eloquence, and he speaks with a 
force and earnestness that rarely fails to carry 
conviction. He is, without doubt, one of the 
most widely-known and popular lecturers on 
Ireland in this country. 

Mr. Pepper has lectured in all the States of the 
Union, and had large audiences in California. 
Coming east after his visit to the Pacific slope, he 
was for a time the guest of Mackay, the Bonanza 
Kino-. He tried to induce the latter to offer 
fifty millions of dollars towards the purchase of 
Ireland from England; but while he is an Irishman, 
"his love of country "said Mr. Pepper; "was hardly 
strong enough to carry him that far." Mr. Pepper 
has enjoyed the friendship of some of the world's 
greatest men. At Belfast he first met General 
Thomas Francis Meagher, and had the pleasure of 
an intimate acquaintance with him until his death. 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 797 

In 1868. he received from Charles Sumner 
a letter on the Irish question, in which he said : 

»I regret the condition of affairs in Ireland, 
which is indeed deplorable, and I am glad to see 
that the subject is beginning to engage the atten- 
tion of British statesmen. Justice to Ireland is a 
British necessity. In every effort for Irish inde- 
pendence and human rights, there is but one side 
for my sympathy and aspiration." 

In an address which Mr. Pepper made before 
the Methodist Conference of Ohio on « The Cause 
of Ireland " the greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and 
when he had concluded his address, the Rev. Horace 
Place arose, and offered the following resolution : 
» Resolved— Having listened with pleasure and 
delight to our brother, Rev. Geo. W. Pepper, of 
Ashland, in his powerful and eloquent address 
upon the all-engrossing cause of Ireland, we, 
as members of this Conference, do hereby heartily 
endorse Home Rule as a grand step towards Irish 
independence, and that we thank God that the 
areat statesman. Wm. E. Gladstone, is crowning 
his long and distinguished career by propos- 
ing so wise, so just, and so beneficial a measure.' 
The presiding elder, Rev. G. H. Hughes, who 
was President, put the resolution, the whole audi- 
ence rising to their feet. The Rev. Mr. Barron 
then sang the « Harp." It was a grand scene, and 
no Irish audience could rival the enthusiasm that 
was there manifested. 



798 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

Mr. Pepper is married and has six children, 
three boys and three girls. His wife's name was 
Christiana Lindsay ; and his youngest son, Charles 
Meagher Pepper, is in charge of the Washington- 
Chicaeo Tribune Bureau. 

Hugh McCaffrey, of Philadelphia, Pa., the 
candidate against John Fitzgerald for President 
of the National League, was born on the 17th day 
of June, 1843, near Banbridge, County Down, 
Ireland. His father being a farmer, young 
McCaffrey attended the nearest country school, 
about two miles distant from his home, and re- 
ceived a good public school education. Being an 
ambitious youth, he consulted his parents as to 
the best method of improving his position in life, 
and they counselled him to emigrate to America, 
where his older brother, Arthur, had already 
gone. 

He complied with the advice of his parents, and 
in September, 1859, being then in his seventeenth 
year, he sailed for the land of liberty. On arriv- 
ing in New York, he immediately proceeded 
to Philadelphia, where he met his brother, who 
put him at file-making, a trade which was then in 
its infancy in the United States. On reaching 
his majority he took out naturalization papers, and 
then started in business for himself. By industry 
and diligent attention he prospered, and in three 
years took his brother John into partnership, and 
the firm, which still exists under the title of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 799 

Pennsylvania File Works, became " McCaffrey & 
Bro." From his earliest years, Mr. McCaffrey 
has taken an active interest in the affairs of his 
native land, and at all times the strings of his 
purse have been unloosed when aid was needed 
for the great cause of Ireland. He was present 
at the first meeting called in Philopatrian Hall, 
Philadelphia, to organize the Land League, and 
afterwards became a member of the Red Hand 
Branch. 

In the spring of 1882, when Mr. Michael Davitt 
came to America, Mr. McCaffrey, with two 
others, was chosen to represent the Philadelphia 
Central Union at Mr. Davitt's reception, in New 
York. He was also elected Treasurer of the 
Central Union, to fill the vacancy caused by the 
death of Michael Patton, and held that position 
until the reorganization of the Land League, on 
its merging into the National League. Robert 
M. McWade, the President of the new organiza- 
tion, or municipal council, appointed him to repre- 
sent the council at the interview held with Presi- 
dent Arthur, in Washington, against pauper 
immigration. 

When Mr. Alexander Sullivan, the then Presi- 
dent of the League, called for subscriptions to the 
Parliamentary Fund, Mr. McCaffrey, if not the 
second, was at least the third person to respond, 
and on April 23, 1884, forwarded his check for 
one hundred dollars. When Robert M. McWade. 



800 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

at the end of the year 1884, resigned the presi- 
dency of the municipal council and positively de- 
clined the honor of a re-election, Mr. McCaffrey 
was chosen as his successor, and still retains that 
important position. During his administration, 
he has labored earnestly to have Irishmen agree, 
no matter what their personal views might be, 
that they would sacrifice them for the good of the 
movement in Ireland; and has counselled all to 
support Mr. Parnell and the Parliamentary Fund. 
On the occasion of the lecture of Hon. A. M. 
Keiley, at the Academy of Music, in Philadelphia, 
for the same fund, Mr. McCaffrey subscribed 
$150; while at the citizens' meeting in the City 
Councils' Chamber, in January, 1886, he and his 
brother John gave the sum of $500. He was 
also one of the committee of fifty which raised 
$35,000 in six weeks for the fund; and he, with 
John H. Campbell, Esq., and others arranged the 
" getting up " of the meeting of English, Scotch and 
Welsh citizens, at St. George's Hall, Philadelphia, 
on July 12, 1886, to sympathize with Mr. Glad- 
stone and Home Rule in Ireland. Besides this, 
Mr. McCaffrey was elected one of the delegates 
to represent the Philadelphia Municipal Council 
at the Chicago Convention, in August, 1886; and 
in various other ways have his friends attested 
his devotion to the cause of Ireland. 

Another Philadelphian, who has the honor of 
being at the head of the Ancient Order of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 801 

Hibernians in this country is Maurice F. Wilhere. 
He was born in* the County Donegal, Ireland, 
October 30, 1854, and in company with his 
mother and sisters immigrated to this country in 
1859 (one year subsequent to the death of his 
father, whose ashes repose in the Green Isle). 
The family landed in Philadelphia and have since 
made it their home. The subject of this sketch 
was the youngest of the children, and received 
his education in St. John's Parochial School and 
in the Manayunk Boys' Grammar School, from 
which he was admitted to the High School, but 
resigned, being more anxious to contribute to 
the support of his widowed mother, and trusting 
to leisure hours to make up the deficiency of a 
more advanced scholastic course. 

Mr. Wilhere was appointed superintendent of 

the Stamp Department in the Philadelphia Post 

Office in 1885, which position he has filled with 

the same ability and good management which 

characterized him in every sphere of life in 

which he moved. A Democrat in American 

politics, whose views are not curbed by party 

lines, and recognizing that the glory of the 

Republic is in its toleration of every man's honest 

opinions, he carries with him alike the respect of 

his own party, and the friendship of those who 

differ from him in political creed. For a period 

of eight years he has been Chairman of the 

Democratic Committee of his District, and for 



802 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

four years represented the Fourth Senatorial 
District in the State Executive Committee. 

It is said that every man has a hobby, and it 
may be truthfully said of Mr. Wilhere that his 
leanings have been always in the direction of 
Irish societies. 

At the age of fifteen years, he first entered an 
Irish society and ever since has actively engaged 
in the propagation of organization among the 
Irish race. Ever alive to the duties and re- 
sponsibilities imposed upon him, he deservedly 
can claim recognition as having faithfully devoted 
time and labor for the advancement of his con- 
victions. As an instance of this, with all his 
duties, both public and private, he has been for 
sixteen years Secretary of St. Patrick's Society in 
his parish, and for a period of twelve years has 
been a delegate and officer of the Irish Catholic 
Benevolent Union of America. For six years 
he has been Vice-President of this great and 
useful organization, and succeeded the Hon. A. 
M. Keiley as President, after that gentleman's 
appointment as Minister to Austria. 

While fully convinced of the utility of benevo- 
lent organizations, he saw that the cause of 
Ireland could only be brought prominently before 
the world by organized power and methods ; 
consequently, when the Land League agitation 
started, he threw his whole soul into the move- 
ment. Those who remember the early struggles 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. y<j;l 

of that movement in this country, only can realize 
the thorny path which had to be travelled by the 
champions of Irish liberty. He was a member 
of the committee who received Mr. Parnell in 
1879, and afterwards organized one of the first 
branches of the Land League in Philadelphia. 
A short time after this the Central Union of the 
Irish National Land League of Philadelphia was 
formed, of which body he was the first President, 
and filled that position until the great Irish 
Convention was held in Philadelphia, when he 
was chosen State representative of the newly 
born Irish National League. At the Boston Con- 
vention in 1884, notwithstanding his declination 
of the position, he was chosen Vice-President of 
the League, which he filled with the same earnest 
devotion to duty which won for him the respect 
and admiration of his co-workers. 

In 1874 he joined the Ancient Order of Hiber- 
nians, and filled at different periods the positions 
of Secretary and President of his division until 
1884, when he was chosen State Delegate. At 
the National Convention of the order, held in 
St. Paul, Minn., in 1886, he was the almost unani- 
mous choice for the position of National Delegate 
— the highest position in the gift of the organiza- 
tion. The selection was indeed a happy one, 
and not only the members of the organization, 
but their friends outside, felt that no wiser or bet- 
ter selection could have been made. It was par- 



#04 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

ticularly pleasing to the members of the Irish 
National League that such a thorough-going Na- 
tionalist should be placed at the head of an or- 
ganization which is the oldest and most powerful 
union that has ever existed among our people. 

During the last seven years Philadelphia has 
been visited by many of Ireland's champions, 
who addressed some of the most magnificent 
gatherings ever assembled in the country, among 
whom were T. P. O'Connor, M. P., T. M. Healy, 
M. P., Rev. Father Sheehy, and John E. and 
W. K. Redmond, M. P. On all of these occasions 
Mr. Wilhere presided, and on various other occa- 
sions in that period ably assisted on committees to 
direct and guide to success any enterprise having 
for its object the liberty of his native land. His 
unselfish devotion to his unfortunate country has 
made him hosts of friends everywhere, and few 
leaders in the Irish movement are better or more 
favorably known. 

As a speaker, he is concise, argumentative, forci- 
ble and convincing, conveying the impression to 
his audience that he clearly understands what he 
is talking about and means just exactly what he 
says. As a debater, he is quick to catch a point, 
always ready to reply, and brimful of jokes which 
he skilfully weaves into his argument. Genial, 
affable and manly, with a desire always to be- 
friend his fellow-man, and with that warmth of 
heart characteristic of his race, Mr. Wilhere is a 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. #05 

typical Irishman, of whom his country may well 
be proud, and is an example of what our race can 
achieve with "a fair field and no favors." 

Judge M. Cooney is a self-made man ; and is a 
.prominent, able, and successful lawyer. He is 
an old resident of San Francisco, although yet a 
young man. He is very popular ; a man of 
strict integrity ; earnest and sincere in everything, 
of good moral habits, liberal in his views; gener- 
ous, charitable, and patriotic ; shrewd and calm 
in his undertakings, and has the confidence and 
respect of all who know him. There is no better 
man or citizen in California. He has raised a 
large and splendid family, and educated them at 
his own expense. He is not reputed wealthy, 
but has accumulated considerable property, and 
now resides in a beautiful home. He has worked 
hard, attended to his profession, and has a large 
practice. He is a native of Ireland, and he has 
given a great deal of time to her cause. It may 
truly be said that no man on the Pacific Coast 
has done more than he has for the last fifteen 
years for the regeneration and betterment of 
Ireland. And since the Land League and Na- 
tional League organizations be^an he has been 
constantly at work. He is a first-class organizer 
and he believes in it. Under his direction and 
influence California has done more than her 
share of the patriotic work. His whole soul is 
in the cause ; he never enters when the work is 



806 GLADSTONE- PARNELL. 

done to reap unearned glory; he inaugurates the 
work and goes with it. In other words he makes 
the movement instead of the movement making- 
him. He is a Nationalist, a Parliamentarian, a 
Conservative, or anything that will bring success 
and make Ireland free or improved. He loves 
California as he loves his native land, and Cali- 
fornians love him. 

M. D. Gallagher was born in Bundoarn, a 
beautiful watering-place, situated on the north- 
west coast of Ireland. His father was a man of 
considerable influence in Bundoarn, of a family 
which at one time possessed a large portion of the 
house property of the place, himself a person of 
large means, a sterling patriot and ever an ardent 
friend of the poor people in their struggles with 
landlord tyranny and oppression. Mr. Gallagher 
was ten or eleven years of age when his father died, 
and was left to the care of an uncle, who placed him 
in a jewelry store* in Ballyshannon. Dissatisfied* 
however, with the circumscribed field presented 
in a small town in Ireland, he departed from his 
native country, and embarked for New York 
when about nineteen .years ot age ; within three 
days after his arrival he was engaged by Benedict 
Bros., the Broadway jewellers ; six months later 
he was sent to Savannah, Ga., by one of the 
wholesale houses of Maiden Lane. He remained 
in the South two years and returned to New York 
in the summer of 1868, after an extended tour 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 807 

of the country. A few months after his re- 
turn he commenced business with the well-known 
New York jeweller, John Cox, under the firm 
of Cox & Gallagher, which, two years later, was 
changed to Gallagher & Cox. The following ten 
or eleven years he devoted to building up his 
business and increasing his financial resources. 

On the arrival of Mr. Parnell in 1879, accom- 
panied by John Dillon and T. M. Healy, Mr. 
Gallagher was one of the sixty gentlemen in- 
vited to meet him in the New York Hotel, when 
the foundation of the Irish National Land League 
for America was laid. He became the President 
of the first branch of the League, started in 
America under Mr. Parnell's advice, which is in 
existence to-day as Branch One, Parnell League, 
New York city. 

He was a delegate to the first Land League 
Convention held in this country, at Trenor Hall, 
New York city ; it was he, who as a member of 
the committee on officers, proposed for the first 
treasurer of the American League, the name of 
the Rev. Lawrence Walsh, of Connecticut, the 
wisdom of whose selection was proved by his 
re-election at the two succeeding conven- 
tions, held respectively at Buffalo and Wash- 
ington. Mr. Gallagher was Chairman of the 
delegation sent by the Parnell Leagues from 
New York to the Buffalo Convention, and it was 
his management of affairs at that convention that 

48 



308 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

largely contributed to the election of P. A. Col- 
lins, of Boston, for President, and Thomas Flatley 
of the same place for Secretary/and Father Walsh 
for Treasurer. The succeeding year found him 
hard at work building up branches, not alone in 
New York city, but throughout the country. 

During three months, every evening in the 
week and twice each Sunday, he addressed 
League meetings in New York, in New Jersey, 
Staten Island, Long Island and in Westchester, 
having during that period founded over fifty 
branches ; at the same time he was President of 
the Parnell Municipal Council, composed of thirty- 
four branches, an office which required on his 
part a vast correspondence to keep the various 
branches in good working order. During this 
time he did not average more than five hours 
sleep in the twenty-four, and his business had to 
be attended to as best he . could, irregularly and 
at intervals. Durine Mr. Gallagher's first term 
as head of the League in New York, $30,000 
were collected there and forwarded to Ireland. 

Mr. Gallagher remained in active work as 
President of the Parnell Leagues up to the Phil- 
adelphia Convention, when the Land League was 
merged in the Irish National League ; during the 
subsequent two years he remained compara- 
tively quiet, attending to his own branch and 
leaving the larger field to others. While in 
retirement from active League work, the Ameri- 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 809 

can Presidential election of 1884 found him 
again actively organizing against Mr. Cleveland 
for the Presidency. Mr. Gallagher was particu- 
larly opposed to Mr. Cleveland on account of 
his vetoes of the five-cent-fare bill, mechanics' 
lien bill, the car-drivers' bill, and other measures 
affecting labor interests ; he was elected President 
of the Anti-Cleveland Union and helped to 
organize a club in every ward in the city, speak- 
ing- night after night without one single dollar 
for his expenses and without any hope of reward 
in money or office, for himself or friends or 
relations ; as he had worked in -the Land League, 
attending conventions in Buffalo, Washington, 
Philadelphia and Chicago, at his own expense, 
so in the Blaine campaign, he neither received 
promises nor cash for his services. General Carr 
appointed him a commander of a division in the 
great Blaine procession in N*ew York ; he rode 
on horseback at the head of 1 200 Democrats, in 
that great demonstration, which numbered 50,000 
men in line. Mr. Gallagher's efforts in that 
campaign, assisted by those of other Irish-Ameri- 
can Democrats, caused a loss to the Democratic 
party of about 75,000 votes in New York ; he 
also presided at the great Blaine meeting of 
Irishmen, held in the Academy of Music and 
addressed by Alexander Sullivan of Chicago. 

In the meantime the League in New York had 
dwindled down from sixty-six to about ten 



gjO GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

branches, which was the number of active 
branches during the year 1885 ; many of the old 
active workers urged Mr. Gallagher to take hold 
of League matters again, but his business had 
suffered so much that he declined on the ground 
that he could not afford it. When the annual 
election of President of the Municipal Council 
took place in July, 1885, Mr. Gallagher's name 
was presented to the convention and he was 
elected President again. Notwithstanding his re- 
peated refusals to hold any more offices, however, 
his old patriotic sentiments got the best of him 
again; he took .hold, and during the summer 
months, when others were enjoying themselves 
in the country, he was reorganizing the old 
branches and building up new ones. 

During the fiscal year, 1884-5, there were only 
$1,400 forwarded to the National Treasurer from 
the Municipal Council, but during Mr. Gallagher's 
term of one year, from July, 1885, to June, 1886, 
although the first six months were devoted to 
getting the organization together, the last six 
months of his term show seventeen thousand 
dollars ($17,000) forwarded and three thousand 
dollars on hand, which was deposited on the 
night of his successor's election and the succeed- 
ing meeting, which makes $20,000 to his credit 
for six months' work. 

He refused to allow his name to be placed in 
nomination again ; Patrick Egan, President of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 811 

the American League, requested Mr. Gallagher 
to act with the National Committee to escort 
the Parliamentary Delegation, Messrs. O'Brien, 
Redmond and Deasy, to the Chicago Convention, 
held last August, and he consented to act ; he 
went down the harbor in one of Mr. Starin's 
steamers to meet the delegates on their arrival 
from Europe, went with them to Chicago and 
escorted them back again to New York, seeing 
them safely on board the steamer for home. 

During Miss Fanny Parnell's active work of 
forming the Ladies' Land League, he was one 
of her trusted lieutenants, consulted by her 
frequently, and when her sudden death took 
place he went to Bordentown, her late place of 
residence, to assist in forwarding the arrange- 
ments for her burial. When her remains were 
removed to Boston, he was one of the special 
escorts to convey them to their last resting-place, 
and was selected as one of the pall-bearers by 
the family on the occasion of placing the remains 
in a receiving vault in Trenton. When the 
remains were forwarded to Boston, the Boston 
Committee appointed him again a pall-bearer 
10 represent New York city. 

THE LEAGUE UNDER JOHN FITZGERALD'S ADMINIS- 
TRATION. 

When John Fitzgerald assumed the position 
to which the National League Convention had 



g!2 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

elected him, he at once " took hold " with his 
accustomed business energy, having apparently 
made-up his mind that from the outset his ad- 
ministration should be marked by the "snap" 
and energy so characteristic of the Irish-American 
pioneers in the Far West. In the first place, by 
means of brief circular letters he informed the 
members of the League of the situation in Ire- 
land, giving the facts " in a nutshell." In the 
second place, he issued, for the better information 
of the American people, "An honest English- 
man's opinion on the Irish Question," the English- 
man quoted being the Honorable Wilfred Scarven 
Blunt, the champion of Egyptian autonomy. He 
followed that up with a concise review of the 
Irish movement, here and in the Old World, 
closing with an earnest appeal for increased ac- 
tivity in swelling the ranks of the League and in- 
creased contributions to the Anti-Eviction Fund. 
The first of these documents was a letter from the 
Hon. T. Harrington, M. P., Secretary of the Irish 
National League, dated at Dublin, Sept. 9, 1886, 
acknowledging the receipt of ,£3,000 from Rev. 
Dr. Chas. O'Reilly, the League's Treasurer. 

President Fitzo-erald issued his first address 
from Lincoln, Nebraska, on Sept. 30, 1886, to the 
officers and members of the National League of 
America "and other friends of freedom." In it 
he reviewed the deliberations and subsequent 
action of the Third National Convention of the 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. yj;> 

League, spoke of his unexpected and unsolicited 
elevation to the presidency of the organization, 
and said : " It is admitted that the numerical 
strength in the House of Commons of the Irish 
Parliamentary Party is largely due to the untiring- 
efforts of the League in America. The large amount 
of money transmitted at opportune times by your 
reverend and distinguished treasurer for the 
parliamentary fund attests the efficiency of your 
organization. Your zealous labors also served 
as an incentive to other patriotic citizens who 
forwarded large contributions to the same fund. 
But, urgent as was the necessity that brought 
forth such generous responses to the parliamen- 
tary fund, there now exists a more urgent demand 
on the Irish race throughout the world. Love of 
kindred and the highest dictates of humanity 
invoke prompt and decisive action. On the 2 2d of 
this month the Tory Government of England 
decided, by the rejection of Mr. Parnell's land 
bill, on the eviction and consequent starvation or 
banishment of thousands of men, women and 
children. Mr. Gladstone has truthfully said that 
every such eviction is equal to a sentence of 
death. Alas, many a single eviction resulted in 
several deaths ; but this was prior to the organi- 
zation of the Irish National League. And I 
am greatly mistaken in the present temper of 
the Irish race and other friends of humanity if 
that barbarity will ever again be permitted on 
God's creatures anywhere. 



814 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

" Until recently the sad story of Ireland was 
only known to her sons ; now it is uppermost in 
the minds of all Christendom. The outspoken 
sympathy of the world is with her children in 
their struggle for home and liberty. Hence 
Lord Salisbury and his government will soon 
discover that they can neither starve, exterminate, 
nor subdue by coercion, the Irish people. The 
fight is on. Evictions for the non-payment of 
impossible rents have commenced. God's creat- 
ures are being rendered homeless and turned out 
on the roadside. But they shall not die the 
death planned for them by heartless tyrants. 

" I therefore appeal to every man and woman 
with Irish blood coursing in their veins to aid in 
resisting this inhuman brutality. Let every 
branch of the League at once start an anti-evic- 
tion fund, and send the contributions to the 
National Treasurer, Rev. Charles O'Reilly, De- 
troit, Mich. Branches should be started in every 
town and village in the country ; in the work- 
shops and on the railroads. Rich and poor 
should unite in this humane and patriotic work. 

" Organization is necessary to resist organized 
tyranny. Let the twenty millions of the scattered 
Irish race, whose hearts beat true to Erin and 
liberty, unite under the leadership of Charles 
Stewart Parnell in the Irish National League, 
and present a united and determined front to that 
Government whose Queen only a few days ago 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE #15 

intimated that the blood and treasure of her 
empire would defend Home Rule in Bulgaria, 
while denying Home Rule to Ireland, and while 
she is content with appointing a ' commission of 
inquiry ' into the system of Irish landlord rob- 
bery. Let the good work commence at once. 
State delegates should lose no time in organizing 
their several States, while municipal councils and 
branch officers should be untiring in their efforts 
to increase the roll of membership. Secretaries 
of branches will please notify the National Sec- 
retary, John P. Sutton, Lincoln, Neb., of all re- 
mittances to the National Treasurer, and all 
changes in branch officers. 

" I respectfully request of the American press 
a continuance of the invaluable assistance hereto- 
fore rendered the League, and I most earnestly 
ask the Irish-American press to arouse our 
countrymen to the imperative necessity of united, 
decisive, and prompt action in aid of the anti- 
eviction fund. I append an appeal from Honora- 
ble Charles Stewart Parnell, whose forcible terms 
should awaken a response in the heart of every 
friend of the oppressed, and more especially in 
those of my fellow-countrymen. 

"I remain yours faithfully, 

" John Fitzgerald. 

"President Irish National League of America " 



816 gladstone— parnell. 

" Avondale, County Wicklow, 

"September 25, 1886. 
" To John Fitzgerald, Esq. 

" Dear Sir : The rejection of the Tenants' 
Relief Bill, the scarcely veiled threats of the Irish 
Secretary, and the alarming increase in the num- 
ber of evictions, clearly indicate the commence- 
ment of a combined movement of extermination 
against the tenant farmers of Ireland by the En- 
glish Government and the Irish landlords. I lose 
no time in advising you of the imminence of a 
crisis and a peril which have seldom been equalled 
even in the troubled history of Ireland. I know 
that it will be the highest duty and the most 
honorable task which can engage the attention of 
my countrymen in free America to do what in 
them lies to frustrate the attempt of those who 
would assassinate our nation, and to alleviate the 
sufferings of those who, unhappily, must be the 
numerous victims of the social war which has 
been preached by the rich and powerful govern- 
ment of England against our people. 

"In sending us that moral and material assist- 
ance which has never been wanting, has never been 
stinted, from your side of the Atlantic, you will 
perform two most important and valuable func- 
tions : you will encourage the weak to resist and 
bear oppression, and you will also lessen and 
alleviate those feelings of despair in the minds of 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. 817 

the evicted which have so often and so unhappily 
stimulated those victims to recourse to the wild 
spirit of revenge. In doing so you will assist in 
preserving for our movement that peaceable 
character which has enabled it to win its most 
recent and almost crowning triumph, while you 
will strengthen it to bear oppression and encour- 
age our people until the final goal of legislative 
independence has been won. 

" Yours faithfully, Charles S. Parnell." 

Lord Randolph Churchill and his Tory Cabi- 
net, after repeated consultations, finally adopted a 
scheme of coercion, to be put in force in every 
part of Ireland where the Irish National League 
had, through its members, shown any signs of 
vitality. It was publicly stated and nowhere 
denied that this scheme comprised the seizure of 
O'Brien's patriotic newspaper, United Ireland, the 
proclamation and attempted extinction of the Irish 
National League, the arrest of the League's 
officers, and the arrest of all persons who advised 
the tenant-farmers to resist eviction or who acted 
as trustees of Anti-Eviction Funds. The landlords 
were also, it was reported, to be aided at all 
hazards by the constabulary and the military in 
the enforcement of their writs of eviction, in all 
cases where the tenants refused to pay more 
than what they considered a fair and just rental 
for their farms. President Fitzgerald, seeing the 



818 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

necessity for immediate action on the part of the 
exiled race on the American continent, in a stir- 
ring despatch dated Nov. 30, 1886, called upon 
the State Delegates to wheel their respective 
branches into line and prepare for a hot and ex- 
citing campaign. " The Tory Government of Great 
Britain has," he said, " once more evinced its in- 
capacity to govern Ireland by other means than 
coercion. Our brethren in Ireland are again called 
to show by courage, suffering and self-sacrifice 
that they are the heirs of their fathers' heroism. 
The time has come when we should prove by our 
actions that our hearts beat in unison with theirs 
in a common love for Ireland and liberty. A few 
weeks since we promised that, should England 
again have recourse to coercion, we would stand 
by them. We must now redeem that pledge. 
Public meetings are proclaimed ; soldiers are be- 
ing crowded into the country to overcome and, 
should opportunity offer, to slaughter the people ; 
prison-cells await the nation's leaders, and every 
engine of oppression and unconstitutional legisla- 
tion is about to be used to prop up tyranny and 
injustice and to crush the legitimate aspirations of 
Ireland. 

" We must see to it that our promise of assist- 
ance was no idle boast. State Delegates are 
called upon to proceed at once to the work of or- 
ganizing the League in their respective States 
and Provinces. They should use every means to 



THE GREAT IRISH STRUGGLE. gl 9 

increase the membership of existing branches and 
establish new ones, and should urge the officers 
of branches within their jurisdiction to devise 
means to promptly raise funds and forward them 
to the National Treasurer, Rev. Charles O'Reilly, 
D. D., Detroit, Michigan, in aid of the Anti-Evic- 
tion Fund. 

"We must not stand idle in the face of the 
present crisis. Experience has proved the futility 
of coercion to crush a determined and united 
people with the loyal aid of her exiled children. 
Ireland will come out of this struggle unconquered, 
unconquerable, victorious." 

The hearty and unanimous replies that poured 
in on him from Canada and from every State and 
Territory in the United States, assured him that 
he could count with certainty upon the loyalty, 
patriotism, and substantial sympathy of the State 
Delegates and of the people everywhere. As I 
pen the closing lines of this work, Anti-Eviction 
Fund Committees, composed of men and women 
of various shades of religious belief and of as 
many different nationalities as are found in this 
free country of ours, are springing up, as if by 
magic, on all sides. The great heart of America 
throbs in sympathy with the suffering children of 
Ireland in their efforts for the amelioration of her 
unhappy condition. Merchants and bankers, 
farmers and mechanics, manufacturers and mem- 
bers of the learned professions, clergymen and 



$20 GLADSTONE— PARNELL. 

laymen, all conspire in this noble cause and unite 
in giving generously of their means to support 
this Anti-Unfair-Rent Fund, and to aid the men 
" at home," 

" Men who their duties know, 
But know their rights, and, knowing, dare maintain." 



H 104 89, 






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